Six held for gang-rape of Bangalore law student

Bangalore, Oct 20 (IANS) Six youth were arrested for the alleged gang-rape of a 21-year-old law student Oct 13 in the Bangalore University campus while two more suspects are absconding, a top police official said Saturday.

“The suspects were arrested late Friday from the adjacent Ramanagaram and Mandya districts after a week-long investigation and hunt is on to trace the other two absconding,” Bangalore Police Commissioner Jyoti Prakash Mirji told reporters.
Ramanagaram is about 60 km and Mandya about 100 km from Bangalore.
A case was registered against the eight accused under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Oct 14 after the victim filed a complaint with police that she was gang-raped when she was in the campus with her boy friend, a techie working in a multinational firm.
“We have zeroed in the suspects after checking mobile calls made from the area and received around the time of the incident (Oct 13 night) and interrogating several people,” Mirji said.
Though the accused admitted to have committed the crime during preliminary investigation, police are waiting for the final report of the victim’s medical examination at a state-run hospital in the city to confirm that she was gang-raped.
“The accused youth are woodcutters from two villages in Ramanagaram and Mandya districts, who frequent the campus in the nights to cut trees, especially sandalwood variety, and making a living from selling the wood in local markets,” Mirji said.
Investigation revealed on that night, the suspects had spotted the victim in a parked car along with her boy friend when they were in search of sandalwood trees for chopping.
“As there was no one around, the accused accosted the victim and the boy friend. They dragged her into their van and drove into the nearby woods leaving her friend behind in the car and sexually abused her,” a police official who investigated the case said.
The victim is a second year student of the National Law School of Indian University and hails from Nepal.