A woman, who is unable to hear and speak, was allegedly forced into an app cab and raped inside the vehicle near Ambedkar bridge off EM Bypass in east Kolkata when she was returning home from work on Tuesday evening.
An app cab driver, who also owns the vehicle, has been arrested.
The 26-year-old woman, who works in a company in Anandapur in east Kolkata, had first shared the details of the incident with a friend. Then she went to Pragati Maidan police station to report the crime on Thursday. Police engaged an interpreter to decipher the woman’s version and started probing.
According to her complaint, she was standing near Ambedkar bridge around 7.30pm on Tuesday, waiting for a public transport when the cabbie of an app cab, that was parked nearby, allegedly stepped out and forced her in the front seat of the car.
The car had sped through the lanes under Ambedkar bridge, she has purportedly told the police.
Her daily routine included taking a bus to Park Circus from where she would board a train for Mograhat in South 24-Parganas district.
“She has said he apparently took the car to a deserted place where she was raped,” said the officer. The accused apparently left her at the location from where he had picked her up before allegedly snatching Rs 5,000 from her bag, she told the police.
The police started scanning the CCTV cameras of the area and zeroed in on an app cab that matched the description given by the woman.
She had purportedly said that it was a white car with a part of it painted black. Sources said the cops managed to get hold of a footage that had captured the driver’s face. They located the white cab quite easily in the footages as it had a black top that stood out from the rest.
On checking records the police found that the vehicle was registered in name of one Mohammad Nasim, who is a resident of Panchanangram — not far from the place where the woman had said she was raped. On raiding Nasim’s house, the police found he was an old man and on interrogating him they learned that his son Kamre Alam, alias Raja, was at the wheel on Tuesday.
Alam, who is in his 30s, was arrested from his home on Thursday night.
Deputy commissioner (east) Gaurav Lal said the accused has been booked under sections of rape, theft, kidnapping, wrongful restraint and causing grievous hurt.
The accused has apparently claimed ignorance and told the cops that the woman had approached him saying that she wanted to use his mobile phone.
Alam was produced before a city court on Friday and remanded in police custody.
A senior police officer said they would submit a prayer before the court for carrying out the test identification parade of the accused youth when he is in judicial remand.
During the test identification parade, nine or 11 persons of height and built similar to that of the accused are made to stand in a line along with the accused person inside the jail. The victim is then asked to identify her perpetrator from the group. The results of the parade are treated as primary evidence before the court in case the victim manages to identify the accused.