JNU students allege assault, attempt to rape; mob calls them cattle thieves

JNU student said the mob hurled offensive religious remarks against one of my friends

A JNU student was molested and her six male friends assaulted for at least two hours after a group of over half-a-dozen hoodlums held them hostage at a lake in Asola sanctuary in Surajkund area of Faridabad, police said on Thursday.

The crime took place on August 14 evening when the 27-year-old student along with her friends had gone there on a fun trip.

Vasant Kunj (North) police, which registered the Zero FIR on August 15, on Thursday transferred the case to Faridabad police through Surajkund police station.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student said she and six of her friends, including one from Delhi University, had gone to Bharadwaj Lake.

Around 8.30 p.m. that day, the group decided to return to Delhi. While she rode a motorcycle with two of her friends, the other four started to walk down towards the taxi waiting for them outside the sanctuary.

"While me and my two friends were driving towards the main road, two inebriated men carrying bamboos sticks blocked our path and started questioning us. They called six to seven of their accomplices who used filthy remarks against us. When we tried to avoid them, they attacked us with lathis," the victim said in the FIR.

"When we threatened to call police, they pulled me inside a temporary shed, tore my clothes, molested me, and tried to gang-rape me, but I resisted their attempts. They also tried to tie us up with a rope and threatened to cut us into pieces and dump in the lake," the JNU student said.

"They hurled offensive religious remarks against one of my friends. They slapped us repeatedly, saying we were cattle thieves," she said.

She said they escaped after their group members, who had also reached the spot, called up another cab driver and pleaded with him to call police to rescue them.

The girl student said they went to Surajkund police station for registering a complaint but police officers there promptly refused.

"Our ordeal and trauma did not end there. Police there abused us in filthy language and forced us to write an apology letter," the woman said in the FIR.

"We have received the FIR from Delhi Police on Thursday regarding molestation, holding hostage, assaulting and attempt to rape on a JNU student and her six friends," Deputy Commissioner of Police (NIT) Faridabad Astha Modi told IANS.

"We are investigating and will call them to record their statements at Surajkund police station. We are in the process of recreating the sequence of crime to identify the accused," he added.