Police say woman raped at IIM-C; her father denies claim

The Kolkata Police on Saturday arrested a second-year student of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C), for allegedly drugging and raping a woman on the campus of the premier business school, officers aware of the matter said.

- Joydeep Thakur

According to police, the accused, Paramanand Mahaveer Toppannawar, 26, and the complainant, a 24-year-old psychologist, got in touch through social media and he asked her to come to the institute's campus in southwest Kolkata on Friday morning for a counselling session.

"He didn't let me register my credentials at the gate...He requested me to follow him to the hostel to have some privacy for the counselling," the woman said in her complaint, a copy of which HT has seen.

At around 11.45am, the two went to room number 151 of the Lake View Hostel inside the campus, where the accused, a resident of Karnataka, was staying, police said. The complainant said that she had pizza and water in the room, after which she felt drowsy and nauseous.

"In my haziest memory all I can recall is that he started to touch me inappropriately. He sexually assaulted me," she said in the complaint.

The woman's father, however, said she was pressured into filing the complaint. "My daughter said that no one misbehaved with her. She called me around 9.40pm on Friday and said that she fell down from a vehicle and lost consciousness.

She was made to file the complaint," he said without mentioning who might have swayed her to approach the police.