Kolkata's Park Street rape case: Police find discrepancies
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Days after an Anglo-Indian woman alleged she was ‘raped at gun point’ inside a moving car in the city's upmarket Park Street, the police on Thursday said they were yet to come to a conclusion as the woman seemed ‘confused’ and there were ‘certain technical discrepancies’ in the case.
However, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed the matter was cooked up to malign her government.
The woman, a mother of two and former call centre employee, has alleged she was raped on the night of February 5. The police complaint was filed on February 9, when the victim underwent a medical examination.
She has accused Lavi Gidwani and four others of raping her.
A highly placed police officer said Gidwani is in Canada and his father has produced all documents to prove it.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Damayanti Sen said that prima facie it also seemed that the two others named by the woman were not at the spot. However, she said: "It is too early to say that until conclusively proved by further investigation."
"It is a serious allegation. We are probing it. But the entire thing is not yet clear to us," Sen told mediapersons here.
The police have initiated a probe into allegations of the woman and one of her relatives that some policemen had misbehaved with them at the Park Street police station when she went to lodge a complaint.
"The Commissioner of Police has ordered an inquiry into the case... If anyone is found guilty then strict action will be taken against them," Sen said.
She said police were speaking to all the people connected to the case, "but there are certain technical discrepancies which are yet to be sorted out".
On Gidwani, Sen said: "Lovi's father has produced all the documents and they have been verified by the immigration department. The immigration stamp shows he is in Canada and he has been staying there since Jan 2," Sen said. "We are trying to physically get in touch with him."
The woman also complained that she was severely beaten up by one of the culprits, who later kicked her out of the car.
The victim alleged Gidwani befriended her and offered her a lift in the car.
Talking about her ordeal to a Bengali news channel, she said: "There were five persons, including two whose names I do not know, inside the car where I was raped at gun point by one Sharafat Ali. The man kept hitting me mercilessly even after he had finished raping me." She named another person in the car as Azhar Ali.
She had also collected their photographs from networking sites and handed them over to the police.
Sarafat and Azhar, both detained by the police, have claimed they were not at the spot.
"We have interrogated them for a long time but apparently there is no discrepancy in their statements.
"Sarafat, who is from Kidderpore, was at his place and Azhar was attending a family festival at Collins Street and their mobile records show that," Sen said.
The statement given by the woman was yet to be proved, Sen said, adding: "We are looking into other possibilities also."
She denied that police were trying to prove the victim wrong.
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