Silchar, Dec. 5 : Seven college students were arrested here last night for the alleged rape of a Mizo girl on Thursday night. They were produced in court and sent to police custody.
A senior police official here said two of the accused were the sons of police officials working as personal security officers to Cachar deputy commissioner and Independent MLA Rumi Nath.
Another three suspects are absconding. Cachar deputy superintendent of police Ashoke Das today said all the police stations in the district and its adjacent areas had been put on alert to track them down.
The seven accused have been identified as Shubhadip Dutta, 20, Jalil Lasker, 19, Biswajit Rakshit, 19, Sankar Dayal Sharma, 19, Biju Nayek, 19, Paplu Das, 19 and Vishal Barman, 20.
The officer-in-charge of Silchar sadar police station, Shyam Kumar Chouhan, said the 30-year-old girl, a resident of Champhai district in neighbouring Mizoram, had come here this week in search of a job and accommodation.
When she ran out of cash, she came in touch with Malsawami, 33, another Mizo girl married to a local man, who allegedly escorted her to a house in Madhurband, a riverfront locality of this town where Shubhadip Dutta has a one-room rented accommodation, on Thursday night. He agreed to provide her a loan of Rs 1,000. In the meantime, he rang up nine of his friends and invited them to his place, police sources here said.
The girl alleged that initially the hours wore by in small talk and then the 10 college students raped her one by one. The police, quoting the victim, said when she demanded the loan amount the boys had promised to give her at dawn, they shooed her away. She then went to the Mizoram liaison office here and lodged a complaint.
Mizoram House informed Silchar sadar police station about the plight of the girl on Friday. The police then rounded up seven of the 10 culprits in a daylong swoop.
The police said the girl would be handed over to Mizoram House authorities to be sent home after a medical screening at Silchar Medical College and Hospital and an identification parade of the alleged rapists.
The gangrape follows that of another Mizo girl in New Delhi’s Moti Bagh area on November 23. The crime is also increasing in Cachar district and adjoining Mizoram. In Cachar, between January and November this year, 21 rape cases were registered in police stations. In Mizoram, 402 cases had been registered till November this year compared with 392 cases registered last year.
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