Four people, including a woman, have been arrested in connection with the alleged gang rape of a 19-year-old woman after she left a party at a Kochi hotel on Thursday night, police said on Saturday.
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Providing details, Kochi Police Commissioner (CP) CH Nagaraju said the alleged incident happened when the survivor arrived at the hotel with a friend from Rajasthan.
In her statement, the survivor said she was invited to the party by her friend who introduced her to the men. She said the men offered to take her home after she got drunk, CP said.
“The woman alleged that she was gang-raped in the moving vehicle by the men while her friend was staying at the hotel,” he said.
“Medical evidence suggests she was sexually assaulted. After committing the crime, the men dropped off the victim in Kakkanad,” a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity.
The woman was admitted to hospital after her friend alerted the police, the officer added.
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Speaking to a news channel, the survivor, an aspiring model, said she suspected her drink had been spiked at the party.
“I spent almost two hours at the party with my friend Dimple Lamba. My beer was mixed with an intoxicant. I soon got drunk and Dimple asked me to get in a car. I felt like that she was there too but she apologized. Later I was brutally attacked by the men,” she said.
The accused men have been identified as P Vivek, Nithin and K Sudeep, all in their thirties.
Police said they registered a case under Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code and seized the vehicle in which the alleged rape took place.
Nagaraju said there was a traffic element also involved in the incident. “There is an element of traffic in there. Section 370 regarding the fight against human trafficking was also added in the FIR because a person was moved from one place to another for this purpose,” he said.
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Condemning the incident, the chairwoman of the state women’s commission, P Sathi Devi, said: ‘We will give all possible help to the survivor.
