Bengaluru: BPO employee abducted, raped for over three hours

BENGALURU: In an incident strikingly similar to the Delhi gangrape case, a 22-year-old BPO employee was raped for over three hours by a driver and a cleaner of a Tempo Traveller on Saturday night. The survivor who boarded the vehicle around 10 pm was taken to an isolated place and was sexually assaulted. She was dropped back at the same spot where she was picked up from, around 1 am on Sunday.

The survivor, who hails from North India (unconfirmed reports said that she is from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh), had come to the city just a few months ago and was working at a BPO in Madiwala. DCP (South-East) Rohini Katoch told Deccan Chronicle that the survivor, after finishing work in the evening, had gone out with her female colleagues. “Around 10 pm, she was waiting at the Bommanahalli Junction to catch a vehicle to reach her paying guest accommodation. Meanwhile, a Tempo Traveller stopped by and she boarded it. As there were no other passengers in the vehicle, her friend warned her not to get into the vehicle, but she went ahead.”

The DCP said, “According to the victim’s statement, there were only two men in the vehicle – the driver and the cleaner. As they did not stop the vehicle where she was supposed to get down, she questioned them. But the duo allegedly threatened her and drove the vehicle to an isolated place, either near Old Airport Road or Domlur, and sexually assaulted her. The exact location is not known to the victim.”

The accused men then dropped her back and escaped. The victim managed to reach her paying guest accommodation and told her PG mates about the incident. Her friends rushed her to St. John’s Hospital, where the victim was treated. The girl was reportedly not willing to file the complaint, but the hospital authorities insisted on a medico-legal case and informed the local Madiwala police station on Sunday.

The police immediately reached the hospital and recorded her statement. Ms Katoch said that the victim regularly boarded vehicles from the same spot.

City Police Commissioner N.S. Megharikh told Deccan Chronicle that when the victim noticed that the vehicle did not stop at the place where she wanted to get down, she called up her parents in North India. “She made the driver speak to her parents. But the accused told them that the vehicle had to go further ahead on the road to take a U-turn to reach the spot. But the driver did not stop the vehicle, instead increased the speed. He also switched off the survivor’s mobile phone, drove the vehicle to an isolated spot and sexually assaulted the woman.”

The police have detained around 40 people in this connection. “Special teams have been formed to investigate the case. As the survivor failed to notice the registration number of the vehicle and has only given sketchy details about the incident, the police are putting their best efforts to nab the culprits,” he said.

Karnataka State Commission for Women Chairperson Manjula Manasa told Deccan Chronicle, “I am going through media reports. I am trying to get information about the incident from the local police. The Commission will file a suo motu case.”

The victim’s parents have rushed to the city. A case has been registered at the Madiwala police station, and the police have subjected the victim to medical tests.

The horror story

• BPO staffer boarded a Tempo Traveller that has only the driver and the cleaner on Saturday night around 10 pm.
• The survivor made to go through the ordeal for over three hours. It ended only at 1 am on Sunday.
• Her statement was recorded by a judicial magistrate on Monday.
• Primary investigations revealed that the vehicle bore an Indiranagar RTO registration number.
• The police collected CCTV footage from major traffic junctions in the locality to find out the vehicle and the accused people.
• The woman reportedly completed her BBM degree in a Bengaluru college a few years ago. She returned to the city only a few months ago in search of a job.
• The rape and murder of Prathibha Srikanth Murthy made national headlines in 2005. On September 13 that year, Prathibha, a BPO employee with Hewlett-Packard, was raped and killed by the cab driver Shivakumar. Five years after the incident, the fast track court ordered life time imprisonment to the convict.
• On Oct 18, 2012, a gang raped three bar girls. The incident took place near Bidadi when the gang members followed the bar girls returning home from work and raped them.