A 25-year-old student, who was out walking with her male friend on Ring Road on the capital’s outskirts on Tuesday around 5.30pm, was dragged to a deserted spot by two youths and raped by the duo and 10 more of their friends, all young men between the ages of 18 and 30.

All the 12 accused have been arrested from Sangrampur under Kanke police station area, close to the site of the assault on the city outskirts, in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

The men have confessed to their crime, Ranchi rural superintendent of police (SP) Rishav Kumar Jha said on Thursday.

Faces covered, the accused — Sunil Munda, Kuldeep Oraon, Sunil Oraon, Sandip Tirkey, Ajay Munda, Rajan Oraon, Naveen Oraon, Aman Oraon, Basant Kachap, Ravi Oroan, Rohit Oraon and Rishi Oraon — were produced before the media on Thursday.

The police also recovered a car and bike they allegedly used in the crime, one 7.62mm pistol with two rounds of ammunition, a country-made firearm of .315mm bore with one round of ammunition, and eight mobile phones from the men.

The woman, in her statement to the police on Wednesday, a day after the assault, said she had been talking to her friend on Ring Road when two youths first accosted them and started heckling her.

Then, they overpowered the woman’s friend and dragged her to a deserted brick kiln. At the same time, they called up their friends, inviting them to rape her.

Ten youths soon reached there and all the 12 raped her in turns, rural SP Jha quoted the woman as saying.

The senior policeman said the woman’s medical test had been done on Thursday and the result confirmed rape.

The survivor was stable, he added. “Let us not sensationalise the case,” Jha said.

The police parried questions on the sequence of events after the gang-rape, including how the woman and her friend were later freed from the clutches of the rapists.

Ranchi rural SP Jha said that none of the 12 accused had any prior criminal record. “They are all engaged in menial jobs.”

On how such a crime occurred near the state capital at a time police patrolling had increased in the wake of Assembly elections, rural SP Jha said: “It was only a coincidence that the police were not present where this assault took place.”

Expressing her shock at the incident, chairperson of the state commission for women Kalyani Sharan told The Telegraph: “More effort is needed to change the attitudes of men towards women.”

A teacher of Ranchi’s Sarla Birla School, Sujata Prakash, said it was unfortunate that women did not feel safe on roads even in and near the state capital.

“I am a teacher and work regular hours, commute by school bus. But I can sympathise with the women who work late and have to travel alone in and around Ranchi,” Prakash said.