Three arrested on charges of raping student inside law college in Kolkata

Indian police have arrested three men accused of gang raping a law student in Kolkata, officials said on Friday, a case that has reignited anger in a city still scarred by the rape and murder of a doctor last year.

The survivor said she was assaulted on Wednesday evening inside a room on the college premises, Indian media reported, with the three accused including two current and one former student.

The All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), the ruling party in West Bengal state, said the "full weight of the law will be brought to bear."

The case again highlights the chronic issue of sexual violence in the world's most populous country, where an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022.

It has also sparked fresh political clashes between the AITC and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP accused the AITC-led state government of failing to protect women.

The pictures of Monojit Mishra, one of the three accused in connection with the rape of a law student within the college premises, along with top Trinamool Congress leaders, have started circulating on the social media, with the state BJP leaders sharing them as much as possible.

Among the Trinamool Congress leaders with whom Mishra had been seen in the pictures includes the party's General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, West Bengal Minister of State for Finance (independent charge) Chandrima Bhattacharya and the Trinamool Congress Councillor in Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Kajari Banerjee, who is the sister-in-law of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Amit Malviya, BJP's IT Cell Chief and the party's central observers for West Bengal, and the leader of the opposition Assembly Suvendu Adhikari are among the BJP leaders who have shared these pictures on their official X accounts and attacked the Trinamool Congress on this issue.

West Bengal had become a "breeding ground for crimes against women," the BJP said in a statement. "State machinery continues to fail its daughters." The AITC rejected the accusations.

The assault comes after a Kolkata court in January sentenced the rapist and murderer of a 31-year-old doctor to life in prison.

Her killing in August 2024 at a state-run hospital in Kolkata triggered protests, with candlelight marches and nationwide outrage over the continuing violence against women.

The brutality of that attack drew comparisons to the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi, a crime that shocked the country and led to widespread demonstrations.

Agence France-Presse