Five arrested for stripping student in Kolkata college

Police arrested five people, including two students, on Tuesday night who allegedly stripped a second-year student of Kolkata’s 153-year-old St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College last month, sparking outrage in the city.

Those arrested were students Arnab Ghosh and Avijit Dolui, former student Sheikh Enamul Haq, Abdul Qayum Mollah (an outsider) and non-teaching employee Ananta Pramanik. The college authorities had named them in the police complaint filed on June 4. On Wednesday, the City Sessions Court sent all the five accused to judicial custody till June 18

An eight-member probe committee recommended the rustication of the two students that the governing body of the college endorsed on June 11. Pramanik has been placed under suspension.

The accused were absconding since the victim lodged a complaint with the Amherst Street police station on June 3.

The victim, who was a member of the students’ union, alleged that he was targeted since he wanted the leaders, Arnab Ghosh in particular, to submit a statement of expenditure of the money they collected in cash from the students.

Ghosh claimed to head the Trinamool Congress unit in the college, though the state president of Trinamool Congress Chattra Parishad, Jaya Dutta, claimed that they did not have a unit in the college.

The accused students recorded the incident on their phones and circulated the clip. It shows the victim crouching on the floor in embarrassment.

The incident took place in the evening of May 17 at the union room of the college adjacent to the principal’s office.

The video went viral on June 2, attracting the attention of the authorities.

Last week, the victim alleged that he was being threatened after police registered an FIR.

Education minister, Partha Chatterjee, asked the police to act quickly on the complaint.

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