Bengaluru engineering college rape: Friends empowered survivor to open up to parents, file police complaint

A third-year student of BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru's Basavanagudi was arrested for the alleged rape of a senior on the college campus, news reports said. The accused, identified as 21-year-old Jeevan Gowda, allegedly dragged a fourth-year student inside a men's washroom and sexually assaulted her. The incident came to light after the survivor found the courage to come out of the shock and filed a police complaint in the presence of her parents.

The shocking incident occurred during the daytime, when students were present on the campus. The girl knew Jeevan beforehand and was intending to meet him anyway, news reports quoted the First Information Report (FIR) as saying. She reached the campus close to 9:00 AM and told him that she would like to meet him in the afternoon in order to collect some items. Jeevan told her that he also wished to talk to her about an important matter.

 

When the girl was with her friends during the lunch break, Jeevan called her repeatedly on her mobile phone. The girl tracked down Jeevan somewhere on the ground floor, but he insisted that she should come up to the architecture block on the seventh floor of the campus, Deccan Herald said in a report.

 

Once she reached the block, the accused reportedly forced himself on her. Although the girl pushed him away and entered a lift, Jeevan stopped it from the floor below, dragged her out, and forced her into the men's washroom. She was raped inside the bolted washroom, the DH report said, adding that the accused got hold of her mobile when one of her friends tried reaching her. The incident occurred between 1:30 PM and 1:55 PM, as per the FIR.

 

Survivor comes out of shock to file complaint

 

The horror of the crime pushed the girl into a state of shock and she was scared to tell her parents about what happened. However, she shared everything with a couple of her friends, who gave her the courage to move legally against Jeevan. Meanwhile, the accused gave her a call asking if she needed a pill, the DH report said.

 

With friends by her side, the survivor summoned the courage to tell her parents about the incident before the Hanumanthanagar police with an official complaint. According to the daily, Jeevan was arrested on Wednesday, and the crime scene was recreated at the college on Thursday. The accused remains in judicial custody.

India