A court in Alipore in Kolkata on Tuesday sent all the four men, arrested in connection with the alleged rape of a 24-year-old student at a law college, to judicial custody till July 22.
The court rejected the bail plea of one of the accused – the security guard. The other three accused did not move plea for bail.
Police have arrested four persons — prime accused Monojit Mishra (31), a contractual staffer who was a TMC students’ wing functionary; two students – Zaib Ahmed (19) and Pramit Mukherjee (20) – and security guard Pinaki Banerjee – in connection with the June 25 incident. All four accused were brought to the court on Tuesday.
During the hearing, Public Prosecutor Subasish Bhattacharya did not seek police custody of the four accused, saying all the required measures to gather evidence have been taken.
“From recording statements to reconstructing the crime scene, police have left no stone unturned in the case. The medical examination has been done, the clothes worn by the accused and the victim have been collected, and their biological samples have been taken. CCTV footage, mobile phones of the accused have been retrieved and sent to forensics, and all electronic evidence has been transferred to a hard disk,” the public prosecutor informed the court.
The public prosecutor said that they were not seeking the police custody of the accused now as the complete forensic report is yet to arrive.
While Raju Ganguly, the counsel of Monojit Mishra, the 31-year-old prime accused in the case, did not seek bail for his client, he urged the court to allow him to be present during Mishra’s interrogation.
Ganguly also demanded that all the statements of Mishra recorded so far should not be considered during the trial, as he was not present during the interrogation. ”All 161 statements of the accused should be cancelled as they were taken in the absence of his legal counsel. I tried to visit, but we were not allowed to meet,” Ganguly told the court, adding “all the accused are alleging that they are being forced to sign on blank papers”.
Meanwhile, security guard Pinaki Banerjee’s counsel moved a bail application. He told the court: “My client’s duty was from 8 pm to 8 am. Before 8 pm what happened, he had no knowledge… He is just a security guard… My client should not be charged of gang rape. The security guard does not run the college. That is done by the administration and the governing body of the college. So, if the security guard is accused, then why not the college administration and governing body? What action has been taken against the vice-principal and the governing body?”
Both the public prosecutor and the counsel of the student opposed the bail application of the security guard. “We have to see where the offence has been committed,” the counsel of the student told the court.
Last week, the Detective Department (DD) of Kolkata Police took over the probe from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the rape case. The SIT, initially comprising five members and later expanded to nine, will now assist the Detective Department in inquiry.