A Japanese tourist who was allegedly kidnapped and raped in Bodhgaya will be asked to identify the culprits at a Test Identification Parade next week
A Japanese tourist who was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a Kolkata-based gang in Bodhgaya in Bihar will be asked to identify the culprits at a Test Identification Parade next week.
Two of the accused, arrested in Bodhgaya, were produced in a court in Kolkata on Saturday and were remanded to judicial custody till January 9. Three others, who forcibly withdrew Rs 76,000 from the tourist's bank account, are in the custody of the Kolkata Police.
The two alleged rapists - Javed Khan and Sajid Khan - belong to Charo village, nearly 70 km from Gaya district. They apparently worked as tour guides in Kolkata and Gaya. Their families claim they are innocent.
The 22-year-old tourist arrived in Kolkata on November 20 and put up at a hotel on Sudder Street, an area popular among foreign backpackers. Some Japanese-speaking tour guides allegedly took her to the seaside resort town of Digha beach on November 23. The accused then allegedly withdrew Rs. 76,000 from her account using her ATM card.
Two days later, they allegedly returned to Kolkata and then sent the tourist off with some others to Bodhgaya. There, she was allegedly handed over to Javed and Sajid who confined her and raped her repeatedly for almost two weeks.
She allegedly managed to escape in the middle of December and reached the Japanese consulate in Kolkata on the 26th and later filed a police complaint.
"The racket has been busted. In all, we have arrested five people. Two are from Gaya who are in jail till January 9. They will undergo a Test Identification Parade where the victim will identify the culprits," said Pallab Ghosh, Additional Commissioner of Police (Detective Department), Kolkata Police.
"Three members of the gang have been arrested in Kolkata. They are in police custody till January 6. We are questioning them to locate the other people involved, people who drove the victim to Gaya and handed her over to the two men there," he added.
The Opposition slammed the Mamata Banerjee government with Congress MP Adhir Chowdhury saying, "The heinousness of the crime, rape, has been diluted by the chief minister of West Bengal herself... and that, I think, emboldened these criminals."