Police on Saturday arrested seven people, claimed to be engineering students, who attacked an army captain and his fiancée while they were returning from the woman’s workplace at 1.30am on September 15. All of them were forwarded to the court.

Additional deputy commissioner of police Krushna Prasad Das said: “A case has been registered against them. We have seized 11 mobile phones and two video clips from them. They were arrested from the Sundarpur Chhaka near Chandaka on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.”

Sources said all of them were engineering students. However, the police are yet to reveal the names of the engineering colleges in which they study. They were arrested based on the video footage of the incident. The police are searching for another five suspects involved in the case.

Those who have been arrested are Rakesh Nayak, 22, Abhilash Samanta, 21, Aman Kumar, 21, Aditya Ranjan Behera, 22, Akash Padhiary, 22, Harish Mahanta, 21, and Sameer alias Asis Kumar Swain, 22. The accused were around 12 people travelling in three cars. They intercepted the car of the army captain and his fiancée on September 15 night and hurled abuses, passed lewd remarks and assaulted them.

According to the police, the accused dragged the captain and his fiancée out of their car and assaulted and abused them over the issue of car overtaking. “There was an exchange of hot words and pulling and pushing among them,” the police said.

Before the arrest, the police recreated the crime scene in the Sundarpur area. They recorded the statement of the army officer. All the accused denied that they physically assaulted the captain and his fiancée. However, several bruises were noticed on the face of the fiancée.

Support has started pouring in for the captain and his fiancée. President of the Utkal Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi and daughter of former chief minister Naba Krushna Choudhury Krusha Mohanty wrote a letter to chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi demanding exemplary action against those involved in the crime. “I was shocked after knowing a girl was assaulted in the police station” Mohanty, 85, said.

Deputy chief minister Pravati Parida met the fiancée at her home on Saturday and assured her of justice. The Biju Janata Dal and the Congress organised a protest rally demanding justice for the couple.