20-year-old student of OP Jindal University gang-raped

Fed up of being blackmailed and coerced into having sexual intercourse for almost two years by three law students of Haryana's OP Jindal University in Sonipat, a 20-year-old student of the same university filed a police complaint on Saturday evening.

The accused, who are in their final year of college, were booked for gang rape and criminal conspiracy. The prime accused, a resident of Sonipat, had been arrested while the hunt to nab the other two is underway, police said. All of the accused are in their early twenties.

The incident came to light when the 20-year-old student on Saturday morning informed college authorities that the accused men were in possession of her nude photographs and had been blackmailing her since August 2013 to have sexual intercourse with them.

The breaking point for the victim came on Friday when two of the accused attempted to rape her inside the campus.

Narrating the sequence of events, a police officer posted at the Rai police station told dna that the girl, who originally hails from Delhi, took admission in the university in August, 2013. She met the main accused named Hardik Shikri who befriended her in the same month. "The friendship soon broke when Shikri allegedly forced her into sexual intercourse," the officer said.

In her complaint, the student told police that after the incident she was afraid to file a complaint because the accused had informed her that he was in possession of her nude photographs. "Over the next two years, the accused repeatedly raped her and threatened to leak the photographs if the she went to college authorities or the police," the officer said.

The accused then forced her to develop physical relations with two of his friends who have been identified as Vikas Garg and Karan Chabra. "Both accused allegedly raped her multiple times and on Friday Shikri and Chabra together attempted to do the same in the campus lounge," the police officer said. In the morning the girl narrated her ordeal in front of prevention of sexual harassment committee which has been set up by the University authorities as a measure to prevent such acts.

Shikri, who was at that time, sleeping in his hostel room, was immediately summoned by college authorities.

"The girl came to us in the morning and named five students in the complaint. The main accused was immediately brought in front of the administration and his mobile phone and laptop were confiscated to prevent further dissemination of the photographs. He was later expelled, and based on the complaint, four other students were suspended," said Dr YSR Murthy, Registrar OP Jindal University. He added that the two other students not named in the FIR are accused of possessing the mentioned photographs. The entire evidence collected by the university was handed over to the investigating teams.

The parents of the girl were informed and they came down to the university after which they filed the police complaint on the same evening.

The girl, meanwhile, was counselled by university faculty who are still in touch with her. "This is an extremely unfortunate incident and we will ensure that the culprits will get punished. We have told the girl student that she can rejoin the university and continue with her education whenever she wants. She was traumatised but we are sure she will fight back," YSR Murthy added.

OP Jindal Global University was established by the Haryana Private Universities (Second Amendment) Act, 2009 with industrialist Naveen Jindal serving as its Chancellor.