Woman sexually assaulted at gunpoint after being given a lift

Puri: In the third such incident in Puri district, a 29-year-old woman was allegedly sexually assaulted at gun point after being given a lift in a car by three miscreants, police said on Friday.

The incident occurred on Tuesday night when the victim belonging to Ganganarayanpur was waiting to board a bus at Matiapara chowk on the back side of Srigundicha temple here, they said quoting the FIR.

The incident assumed significance in the backdrop of the rape and attempt to murder a Dalit girl at Pipili and the rape and murder of a minor girl at Chandanpur in the Puri district.

The alleged victim, who sold earthen lamps for offering before the God in the temple town, was offered a lift in a white car while she was waiting to return to her village. The woman was asked by one of the occupants of the car whether she wanted a lift till Chandanpur. She agreed as there was no sight of a passenger bus, police said, quoting from the content of the complaint made by her.

However, the car stopped near a petrol pump at Tulasichaura on the Puri-Bhubaneshwar National Highway 203 and the trio dragged her to the back side of the filling station where they allegedly sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.

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One of occupants of the car, identified as Nilakantha Singh alias Chagala of Khakimatha Nuasahi of Puri, was known to the woman, she said in the FIR.

The woman was later rescued by Sukanta Sahu who dropped her in the village, she said.

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Meanwhile, police had registered cases against the trio under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and sent the woman for medical examination. The medical report was still awaited, police said.