The lawyer of South Calcutta Law College rape case accused Monojit Mishra has come up with a new claim that the occurrence of love bites on Monojit Mishra’s body is evidence that the encounter was consensual and not rape.
Mishra, an ex-student leader of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing, is among 3 men arrested over the gang rape of a 24-year-old student on the college campus on June 25. Until July 8, all three are will be in police custody.
Addressing the media, Raju Ganguly, lawyer for Mishra, said that the prosecution had focused solely on scratches on the body of his client that forensic reports indicate were indications of resistance by the survivor during the time of attack, but had ignored the reference to alleged love bites.
Shocking claim in Kolkata Gang Rape Case
Ganguly claimed “If it was rape, there wouldn’t be any love bites on Monojit’s neck,”. “The prosecution has presented one side of the story, but not the whole picture. We think this is a conspiracy to frame Monojit.”
Ganguly also had raised questions about the survivor’s account, asking why she complained to the police almost 18 hours after being assaulted. The rape was said to have occurred on Wednesday at 10:30 pm and the FIR was lodged the next afternoon at around 4:45 pm.
Ganguly asked “If she was traumatised and detained, why didn’t she go to police straight away with her father after leaving college?” “Why wait until the following day?”
The lawyer further asked if the survivor’s mobile phone had been taken and forensically examined for call records, proposing that critical digital evidence may not have been thoroughly analyzed.
New claim in Kolkata Gang Rape Case is ‘victim-blaming’, says activists
Following this claim, the lawyer’s remarks have been sharply denounced by women’s rights activists and legal practitioners, who labeled it as an example from a textbook on victim-blaming and muddling the way consent, coercion, and trauma manifest in the case of sexual violence.
This is a devious effort to put the blame on the survivor and mislead the public,” a senior advocate said, who deals with cases of sexual violence. “Love bites, even if they exist, cannot beat the fact that medical reports indicate the presence of physical resistance. Rape is a matter of consent, not looks.”
Police sources have confirmed earlier that all named suspects were arrested within 12 hours of the complaint, and a fourth suspect was later arrested based on forensic proof. Medical checks have been done and forensic experts have visited the crime scene.
