Northeast

Three arrested over gangrape of teen girl in Tripura; name of BJP minister's son crop up

PTI

AGARTALA: Three people were arrested in connection with the alleged gangrape of a 16-year-old girl in Tripura's Unakoti district, police said on Sunday.

Alleging the involvement of a state minister's son in the incident, opposition Congress and CPI(M) demanded the arrest of all the accused, while the BJP dismissed the charge.

The girl was allegedly raped by a group of youths in a three-storey building in Kumarghat on October 19, triggering an outrage.

Based on an FIR lodged in the case, three people including a woman were arrested but a few others are still at large, Kumarghat Sub-divisional Police Officer Biplab Debbarma told PTI.

In the police complaint, the survivor's mother alleged that a woman from the neighbourhood had taken the girl to Kumarghat on October 19 and kept her at the building where she was gang-raped.

Congress sought stringent police action against those involved in the crime.

"The name of a minister's son is cropping up. Therefore, we seek a statement from Chief Minister Manik Saha on the issue. We demand immediate arrest of all the accused," former Congress MLA Asish Saha told reporters.

CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Choudhury said "it was disturbing" to know that the name of a minister's son has cropped up in the gangrape case. "We demand a probe to find out the role of the minister's son. If he is an accused in the case, he must be immediately brought to the book," Choudhury said.

However, the BJP rubbished the allegations against the minister's son.

"The allegations are totally baseless and politically motivated as he was in Agartala when the incident took place in Kumarghat on October 19. We also want all the accused people to be nabbed," BJP's Unakoti district president Pabitra Chandra Debnath said.

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