Three arrested in alleged Durgapur gang rape case
The Statesman | 13 October 2025Abhisekh Gupta, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) East of Asansol-Durgapur Police Commissionerate grilled the three accused at the Durgapur police station. “We have already arrested three accused persons and are searching for two others. They are being produced before Durgapur Court today and will be taken on remand,” he said. The police located the three accused in a jungle near Paranganj, about one kilometre away from the private medical college hospital, by tracing their mobile call tower locations.
A team of officers of the ADPC led by ACP Subir Roy and Circle Inspector Ranabair Bag and OC of NTPS, SI Nasreen Sultana, raided the Paranganj jungle, deploying drones for the purpose, and arrested the three persons, identified as Apu Bauri, Sheikh Firdous and Sheikh Raiazuddin. Another person, Sheikh Nasiruddin alias Samrat, have been detained. All of them are residents of Durgapur. A second year medical student of the college, the friend of the rape survivor, has also been detained by the police for questioning. The police are now searching for two others who are absconding.
The Commissioner, ADPC, Sunil Kumar Choudhary, who has already talked with the parents of the survivor, is rushing to Durgapur to interrogate the three accused. Police are also investigating the CCTV footage of the area and any possible previous connection of the accused with the friend of the survivor. The three accused claimed they were innocent to the media while being taken to court and maintained that they have been falsely framed. ADPC sources said that the accused had snatched the mobile phone of the survivor and called her friend and others from her phone and the phone of one of them, which gave the police the big break in this case. The police later traced the mobile tower locations in the jungle and operations using drones started early in the today.
The accused were hiding in the jungle fearing they would be identified through CCTV footage, police claimed. Meanwhile Forensic Science experts have arrived at the forest, where the second-year old MBBS student was allegedly raped and collected samples from the spot. A team of Odisha Police has also arrived in Durgapur and talked with the survivor’s family and local police. The survivor’s father has urged the chief minister of Odisha, Mohan Charan Majhi, to help take back his daughter to their home state for further treatment. The Odisha chief minister called him over the phone yesterday.
The DGP, CS and the local DM and SP are constantly in touch with him, he said. The BJP staged an agitation in Durgapur demanding arrest of the guilty. Leaders like state general secretary, Jyotirmoy Singh Mahatao, Locket Chatterjee and local MLA Lakhsman Gharui were also present. The Congress district president, Debesh Majumdar has also announced an agitation on this issue. Before leaving for her North Bengal trip today, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condemned the incident, even as she laid part of the blame at the doors of the authorities of the private medical college. “Nobody should politicise such incidents.
Our police have already started taking actions and three persons are arrested. But what happened to the three women who were raped on the Odisha beaches,” Miss Banerjee questioned. Meanwhile, the private medical college hospital where the survivor was studying has sent a preliminary report of the incident to the state Director of Medical Education at Swasthya Bhawan in Kolkata
