Pune: Three men gang-raped a 21-year-old event management course student when she had gone out with a friend late Thursday night at Bopdev Ghat , around 10km from Kondhwa, in the city. The crime occurred near the scenic ‘Table Point' at the ghat, barely 100m from a police help centre. No police personnel was at the centre then.
"The trio assaulted her friend (22), a final-year chartered accountancy student , and forced him to remove his shirt and belt brandishing a sharp weapon. They used his shirt and belt to tie him up before sexually assaulting the woman. They took away her silver finger ring but returned her friend's cellphone before leaving the spot," a senior police officer associated with the investigation said.
"The survivor and her friend are not from the city," Pune's joint commissioner of police Ranjan Kumar Sharma said on Friday. The woman hails from Gujarat and her friend is from a north Maharashtra city. DCP R Raja said they met through a common acquaintance before becoming friends.
He said, "They had been to Bopdev Ghat for the first time, her friend told us." The police on Friday evening released the sketches of two of the three suspects based on the description provided by the survivor's friend. "The three men were conversing with each other in Marathi and Hindi, her friend told us," Raja said.
Bopdev Ghat, about 20km on the outskirts bordering Kondhwa in the city and Saswad in rural Pune, is a popular sightseeing and trekking destination for college studen.