'Gave inhaler, dragged me to guard room': Kolkata gangrape survivor recounts horror in police complaint

Three accused have been arrested in connection with the alleged rape of a first-year student.

The 24-year-old student from South Calcutta Law College has alleged in her police complaint that she suffered a panic attack moments before being sexually assaulted by an alumnus and two students on campus.

In her complaint, she said that just before the assault, she suffered a severe panic attack and was visibly gasping for breath.

The main accused, identified as Monojit Mishra, allegedly instructed one of the co-accused to fetch an inhaler for her so she could stabilise her breathing. The inhaler was handed to her, and once her breathing stabilised, the accused allegedly dragged her to a guard room on campus, where the assault began, the survivor mentioned in her complaint, according to a report by News18.

According to the survivor’s statement, the incident escalated after she rejected Mishra’s advances, as he had earlier proposed to her and expressed his desire to have sex and marry her. When she refused, Mishra allegedly forced himself on her.

Monojit Mishra, a contractual employee of the college, who is also a former student and a youth leader of the Trinamool Congress, and two students - Zaib Ahmed and Pramit Mukherjee - have been arrested and sent to police custody.

Police have located the medical store Ethan Pharma, near the college, from where Ahmed had purchased the inhaler at 8.29 pm. The medical store owner told the police that as Ahmed didn’t have enough cash, he said that he would pay the half through UPI. When the store owner insisted on making the payment through one mode, he paid Rs 350 through UPI. Police have seized the receipt, according to a report by the Hindustan Times.

Officials aware of the developments said that during interrogation both Mukherjee and Ahmed claimed that Mishra had promised to give them plum posts in the TMC’s youth wing in the college, if they helped him to lure the woman on June 25 and detain her after college so that he can engage in a sexual relationship, as reported by HT.