Bangalore: Five students of a private college in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka were arrested late Wednesday evening on charges of raping a girl in March this year, police officials informed here. The police became aware of the incident after a number of video clips surfaced on various platforms of the social media.
Police officials said that all the accused are in the age group of 18-19 years. The students of the institution have been charged with gangrape and they have been booked under the strict law which protects scheduled castes and tribes. The 18-year-old girl, a member of the Dalit community, went to the same college and knew one of the accused.
Describing the incident, the police said that four of the five booked took the girl in a car to a dense forest area. Then while having drinks, they drugged the girl and raped her there. They also recorded the incident and threatened the girl that the video would be circulated on social media if she complained about the incident to anyone.
However, even though the girl kept quiet, fearing social stigma, the video was circulated on various social media platforms. One of the videos circulated shows three boys assaulting the girl while a fourth filmed the incident. After the video went viral it came to the notice of the Karnataka Police social media monitoring cell.
The police on their own registered a case and formed two teams to trace the accused, which led to their arrests. On interrogation it was discovered that the fifth accused had allegedly circulated the video. It should also be stated here that the five have also been suspended by their institution.
District Superintendent of Police (DSP) BM Laxmi Prasad has warned the public not to share the video on social media. He said that anyone who did so will be arrested and prosecuted.
Agencies