Bhubaneswar: An associate of suspended NSUI Odisha unit president has been arrested in connection with the alleged rape of a 19-year-old college student four months ago.
The accused has been identified as Ayushman Sahoo, a BTech second-year student of a private university. He was apprehended in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.
NSUI Odisha unit president Udit Pradhan was arrested on July 20 after the woman lodged a complaint before the Mancheswar police station, alleging that he raped her in a hotel by spiking her drink with sedatives. However, while recording her statement before the police and the court, the victim also mentioned Sahoo as one of the perpetrators of the crime.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (zone-5), Bhubaneswar, Biswaranjan Senapati, said that a female friend of the college student had accompanied her to the hotel on March 18, when the alleged incident took place. “We will record her statement on Wednesday,” he told the media.
In her statement, the victim said that she and her female friend went to meet Sahoo, and Pradhan joined them at Railway Station Square as they were moving around in his car on March 18. Pradhan and Sahoo then took her to a hotel in Mancheswar and allegedly committed the crime, the ACP added.
Mancheswar police have turned the case to 70(1) (gangrape).
Interestingly, Sahoo had released a video dismissing the survivor’s allegations following Pradhan’s arrest.
The National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), a wing of the Congress, suspended Pradhan on July 21 after the alleged incident came to light. Congress student wing were seen tearing off some of posters with photos of the suspended NSUI state president alongside Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi and Odisha Congress chief Bhakta Charan Das put up in Bhubaneswar last evening.