Cabby arrested for Panchasayar rape

KOLKATA: Police on Saturday arrested one person for the alleged rape of the 36-year-old inmate of a Panchasayar shelter home in the wee hours of Tuesday. Cops said she was allegedly raped by a taxi driver, identified as Uttam Ram, and not by two men as was being suspected earlier. Ram was arrested from the Sonarpur area.
“The names she was taking were either her relatives or inmates of another home where she was staying.Her mental condition was such that she couldn’t differentiate between her tormentor and the people she knew,” said Murlidhar Sharma, joint CP (crime).
Cops said the woman had left the shelter home at Panchasayar around 10.30pm on Monday. She walked towards the 206 bus stand and then went back towards Commet Park Road close to where she was staying. “She saw a private car and stopped it. She wanted a drop to her home in Behala. The driver knew that she was a mentally challenged person and dropped her off at Peerless Hospital gate about 200 metres ahead. The woman then walked towards EM Bypass and tried to flag down a few vehicles but failed,” police said.
It was then that Ram saw her and stopped his car. “The woman wanted a drop at the shelter home. Ram took a U-turn towards Ruby and then another U-turn towards Katipota in Sonarpur where he allegedly raped and dumped her,” said an officer. Police said the woman then went to a ‘Bhajan jatra’ where people noticed her wearing a red dress soaked in blood. They informed Narendrapur police who then got her treated and left her at a Sonarpur home in the wee hours of Tuesday.
The woman, though, fled this home around 4pm and reached Sonarpur station nearby. She then boarded a train to Ballygunge with help from passengers and reached the Gariahat residence of her maternal aunt, claimed police.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)