The police till Sunday night could not arrest any of the men who had allegedly molested and beaten up two women and two men with iron rods and wooden stakes in Kalindi in northeast Kolkata on September 25.
The women lodged a complaint with Lake Town police station on Saturday.
An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said they had registered the complaint “promptly” despite an "initial confusion" over the jurisdiction of the area where the four were allegedly assaulted.
“A part of Kalindi is under Dum Dum police station. The women could not describe properly the place of occurrence and our officers spoke to them at length trying to identify the spot. Once that was done, we promptly registered the complaint,” said the officer.
According to the rulebook, any police station in India can register a “Zero FIR” (when the place of occurrence of crime is under another police station) for immediate relief of the complainant. The FIR can then be transferred to the police station concerned.
Another senior officer of the commissionerate said they had started a probe.
“We started a case immediately on the basis of the complaint and are looking for the men involved,” the officer said.
A woman and a male friend were waiting for an app cab when a group of men allegedly teased her and threatened to rape her. When they protested, the men beat them up with iron rods and wooden stakes.
Hearing their cries, a man and a woman, who are friends with the alleged victims, rushed to the spot from an apartment nearby. They, too, were allegedly assaulted.
One of the women told this newspaper they had to face an ordeal while trying to lodge a complaint a day after the incident. “All of us were badly injured, still we went to Lake Town police station the next day to lodge a complaint. However, the officers there told us to go to Dum Dum police station, saying the place of occurrence was under the jurisdiction of the Dum Dum cops,” the woman said.
Her friend said it was appalling that the police failed to arrest anyone even eight days after the incident. “The men openly molested us, beat us up and even told us that we could do nothing as they had been to jail several times. They also tried to take our photographs without our consent and one of the men said they would find us and rape us. We are living in fear,” the woman said.