A young woman was allegedly raped by four men who picked her up from outside her house in Titagarh in North 24-Parganas, around 19km from the heart of Kolkata, on Wednesday night.
The attackers later dropped her near home.
The 21-year-old woman has told police that three youths raped her after dragging her into bushes close to her house and the fourth stood guard.
The police have drawn up a case of gang-rape based on the complaint filed by the woman’s parents.
Three of the men have been arrested, while a search is on for the fourth.
“The woman has said she can identify those who had raped her,” said a senior officer of the Barrackpore police commissionerate.
“We will arrange for a test identification parade soon so that the woman can identify the accused in the presence of a magistrate.”
A number of residents of Ward 5 of Titagarh Municipality, where the woman was allegedly gang-raped, told the police that four youths had come and dragged the woman away around 10pm on Wednesday.
“There were four youths. They held her and dragged her to bushes nearby,” said Bijay Shaw, a resident of the locality.
The woman broke down after returning home and narrated the brutality she was subjected to, to her parents and grandmother.
On Thursday, after receiving the complaint, officers from Titagarh police station spoke to the woman and took down her statements before getting her examined at BN Bose Sub-divisional Hospital in Barrackpore.
Later in the day, the woman recorded her statements in front of a magistrate in the Barrackpore court under Section 164 of the CrPC.
The police said the youths were all residents of the area and did not appear to have any criminal antecedence.
On Friday evening, Chandrima Bhattacharya, West Bengal’s minister of state for finance and health and family welfare, visited the woman’s home with Raj Chakrabarty and Arjun Singh, the local MLA and MP.
Sources said the minister asked the woman if she knew the youths.
The woman, who sat with her face covered with a black dupatta, said she could even name them.
“She is as much our daughter as she is to her parents. We will take care of her social security,” Bhattacharya said.
“We have asked the police to take action against the men, irrespective of their political affiliations.”
Earlier in the day, a delegation of the BJP woman’s wing gheraoed Titagarh police station.
