Kolkata: The Kolkata Police took a complete U-turn on Saturday in the Park Street rape case, confirming that the accused used different names and that there were reasons to believe that this was not their first alleged act of criminality. The police also confirmed that the victim had, indeed, been raped.
The statement came after the police managed to arrest 3 of the accused, who confessed to the crime. Sumit Bajaj and Ruman Khan were arrested while they were on their way to Howrah station to leave the state. While Naseer was arrested much later. The police have recovered their vehicle, a silver Honda civic. The gun, however, hasn't been recovered yet.
The police had earlier claimed that the accused prima facie had solid alibis.
Bajaj, Khan and Naseer, along with another friend, lured a 37-year-old Kolkata woman from a nightclub and allegedly raped her at gunpoint in a moving car. The incident occurred nearly two weeks ago.
The main accused is, however, still absconding.
The police claim that Khan introduced himself as Lavi Gidwani. Khan is the man who the victim claimed to have befriended her at the Tantra nightclub. The police say that the accused have impersonated different names several times in the past and are frequent club-hoppers. Khan, who has a leather business and is a resident of Beniapukur, used to go to the gym where Sharafat Ali (the name used by the main suspect and as identified by the victim in the complaint) used to go.
Meanwhile, Naseer introduced himself as Salman to the victim.
The arrests have laid threadbare the argument by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that the victim had lodged a false complaint in a bid to create more problems for the Trinamool government.
Joint Police Commissioner, Crime, Damyanti Sen said, "We could identify the vehicle and it belongs to Sumit Bajaj. One of the men introduced himself as Lavi Gidvani and 2 others as sharafat Ali and Azar Alibut. From the CCTV footage, it could be seen that they were different set of people."
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