Kolkata:
A day after lodging a police complaint alleging gangrape, a woman in Kolkata today retracted her statement after investigators pointed to discrepancies in her account, police said.
The woman, who works as a medical attendant, did the U-turn hours after an accused was sentenced to police custody in the wake of her initial statement and complaint given on Sunday.
"During investigation, we found several discrepancies in her account and when we confronted her, she retracted from her statement and said she was not gangraped. We do not know if she was pressured to file the complaint but we are looking into the matter," said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Pallab Kanti Ghosh.
The woman, in her complaint, had alleged that she was abducted by at least five men from Chetla in south Kolkata on Saturday. She further claimed that the men took her to a house where she was raped by two persons before being dumped at the same place the next morning.
The woman also gave her statement before a judicial magistrate on Monday.
Following her complaint, the police arrested Ajay Bhattacharya alias Cheno, who was subsequently remanded to police custody till August 18 by a city court.
"The area from where she was allegedly abducted is a busy place, but during our investigation we could not find any person who had witnessed the offence. Moreover, the woman was at her workplace the entire Saturday night, during which she said she was kept at an unknown house and raped," added Mr Ghosh.
Media reports alleged that the woman was pressured by politicians to file the complaint.
Local Trinamool councillor Juhi Biswas said: "Yes, she had called me up Sunday morning and I had accompanied her to the police station. But I did not write the complaint. I only went there to ask the police to take necessary action".