Friends arrested for gang-raping class VII girl in Kolkata

KOLKATA: A class VII student was allegedly gang-raped by two close friends and two other men, double her age, when she went out with the friends on Thursday evening to attend a birthday party. She was allegedly tricked and taken to an address in Ekbalpore where she was allegedly tormented and raped on repeated occasions by the four men.
Based on her complaint, police registered a case of gang rape and sections under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and arrested all four of them on Friday, within hours of the complaint.Police identified the friends as Amarjit Chowpal (21) and Manoj Sharma (22), both residents of a slum in Parnasree area and the other two men as Vikas Mallick (25) and Ritwik Ram (25), both residents of Port area. The four will be produced before a city court on Saturday.
All the four men are school dropouts and do odd jobs. Police said, Amarjit and Manoj had made friends with the victim outside her school.
Police said, on Thursday, the 12-year-old girl had left her home in south west Kolkata around 6.30pm informing her parents that she was going out with friends to attend a birthday party. However, when she didn’t return till midnight her parents called up all her friends before lodging a complaint with Parnasree police station.
Officers of Parnasree police registered a missing diary and began a search for the girl. On Friday morning, around 10.30am, the girl herself reached the police station with an acquaintance and lodged a complaint of gangrape against the men.
“She could name two of them who were her friends. She told us how they took her to a room, made her drink liquor and then took turns to rape her,” said a senior officer at Lalbazar.
Parnasree police registered a zero FIR based on the complaint. While interrogating the two friends, who lived in a local slum at Parnasree and checking on the CCTV footages they found out whereabouts of the two other accused persons. The crime was conducted at a house at Bhukailash Road in Ekbalpore. Following the revelation, the case was transferred to Ekbalpore police station which took charge of the four accused youths.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)