Email threats, morphed pics, then gangrape: What student's complaint says in South Asian University case in Delhi

Investigators privy to the case details said that they are yet to identify the four people mentioned by the woman in her complaint.

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police have registered a case of gang rape following a complaint by an 18-year-old student at South Asian University (SAU) in south Delhi, who alleged she was sexually assaulted by four unidentified men inside the campus on Sunday evening.

A female sub-inspector and team responded but found the victim too distressed to speak initially.(Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times/Representative)

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Ankit Chauhan confirmed that an FIR has been filed based on the victim’s statement. “The case is being investigated with due sensitivity and priority”.

Investigators privy to the case details said that they are yet to identify the four people mentioned by the woman in her complaint, and teams have been formed to apprehend them.

According to the FIR, a copy of which was accessed by HT, the BTech first-year student had been receiving threatening emails from an unknown address for two to three days prior to the incident. The sender allegedly demanded she meet near the campus Guest House at 11:27 PM, but she did not comply.

The following day, she received another email containing obscene language, instructing her to meet outside her hostel block. She showed these messages to three of her friends, who checked the specified location at the time mentioned in the emails, but found no one there. “They (the friends) told me to relax and rest because I was stressed,” she wrote in the FIR.

The harassment, she added in her complaint, escalated on Sunday when the victim received morphed obscene photographs of herself via WhatsApp and Telegram, created using her display picture.

Accompanying messages threatened to circulate the images among students if she failed to appear at Gate Number 3. “The message read that if I don’t come to gate number 3, these photographs will be circulated among students,” she states in the FIR. Anxious and unable to reach her friends by phone, she eventually informed another friend but grew increasingly distressed and stopped answering calls, reads the FIR.

The victim further stated that she deliberately took a less crowded route toward the university's convocation centre, where construction is ongoing. She sat near the site where a security guard was present.

According to her complaint, the guard summoned a middle-aged man, and shortly afterwards, two younger men arrived. The four, she said in the FIR, allegedly forced her into an empty room near the convocation centre, where they sexually assaulted her. One attacker attempted to force a pill into her mouth, which she claims to have spat out.

The alleged assailants fled when they heard people exiting the nearby mess, she added. She said after the assault, she was disoriented and traumatised, and was later found by friends near the campus theatre.

The FIR also details allegations regarding the university administration's response.

The victim claimed that despite a doctor emphasising the seriousness of the situation, the hostel in charge dismissed her account and instead levelled allegations against female students. Friends advocated for involving police and seeking medical attention, but the hostel in-charge allegedly advised the victim to "take bath and change clothes." The victim also alleged that officials prevented her from contacting her mother or outsiders, and physically obstructed her from showing her injuries to her parents via video call.

“The administration was not taking (me) seriously and not allowing (me) to involve any outsider. I wanted to video call my mother and show her the bruises, but the hostel-in-charge and a guard were covering me,” she alleged.

A PCR call was eventually made by the victim's friend on Monday afternoon. A female sub-inspector and team responded but found the victim too distressed to speak initially. After counselling and a medical examination at Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital, her formal statement was recorded early Tuesday.

The case has been registered under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including sections 70 (gang rape), 62 (attempt to commit offence), 123 (causing hurt by means of poison), 140(3) (kidnapping), 115(2) (volutarily causing hurt), 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), and 3(5) (common intention). “Probe is underway and teams are working to identify the suspects,” the officer said, adding that the woman's statement before the magistrate was recorded on Tuesday.