Kasba law college rape case: Vice-principal’s attendance marking creates doubts, probe on

Kolkata: The attendance marking by the vice-principal of the South Calcutta Law College (New Campus) at Kasba in south Kolkata on June 25, on the evening of which the rape of a student took place within the campus, has left the investigating officials intrigued.

Last week, the sleuths seized three important documents of the college, namely the register book where the minutes of the college governing body’s meetings are kept recorded, the documents related to the contractual appointment of one of prime accused Monojit Mishra, and the attendance book of all teaching and non-teaching staff of the college.

Now an examination of the attendance book has revealed that although both the entry and exit times of the vice-principal of the college and secretary of the college governing body Nayna Chaterji have been recorded at 9.50, neither a.m. or p.m. had been recorded there, said an insider from the city police.

According to him, one possibility was that she marked her entry time as 9.50 a.m. and the exit times as 9.50 p.m., and in that case, she was within the college premises at the time of the crime being committed, which was reportedly between 7.30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

The other possibility, the insiders said, she marked her entry attendance at 9.50 a.m. and immediately left the college premises marking the same time as her exit, which sounded quite unlikely.

The cops are now investigating to clear the doubts about the ambiguity in the attendance marking of the vice-principal on June 25. Chatterjee had kept herself totally incommunicado from the media for the last couple of days.

The investigating officials have started examining minutes of the successive governing body meetings of the college for the last few months, to see whether the governing body at all took cognisance of the past complaints of highhandedness, hooliganism, and even sexual harassment within the college premises against Mishra.

Last week, the investigation was handed over to the Detective Department of the city police, which has started the probe process by adding new sections against the three prime accused persons.

Before Detective Department took over the charge of the investigation, three accused persons were charged under sections on rape. However, the Detective Department, after taking over the investigation, added sections relating to abduction and causing injuries with weapons.

While Mishra has already been identified as the architect of the crime of rape, the other two arrested accused individuals, namely Jaib Ahmed and Pramit Mukhopadhyay, have been identified as the facilitators in the crime.

–IANS