A 21-year-old medical student in Pune district’s Baramati town was allegedly robbed, assaulted and stripped by three youths, who also took his nude photos and threatened to make them public, the police said on Wednesday, adding that the accused were arrested within hours of the FIR being lodged.
The incident took place between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm on December 4 near Baramati Medical College and General Hospital, which is located near the industrial area of Baramati town, 110 km from Pune city.
According to the first information report lodged at the Baramati Taluka police station, the second-year medical student said that on Sunday night, he was walking back to his hostel after shopping at a local mall when he was intercepted by a man on a bike at a secluded location near the hospital’s oxygen generation plant. The man allegedly threatened to harm the student and stole Rs 15,000 from his pocket. Moments later, the FIR says, two more people arrived at the spot on a bike.
When the student resisted and demanded his money back, the accused allegedly started assaulting him. They then forced him to sit on one of their bikes and took him to an isolated spot in a sugarcane field behind a local hospital, the FIR says. Using sugarcanes, the accused allegedly assaulted the student on his head, back, thighs and hands, forced him to strip and one of them took his nude photos. They further demanded money from him threatening to circulate the images, the FIR states.
The accused then allegedly made the student wear his clothes and took him to a nearby ATM kiosk. One of them entered the ATM with his face covered and withdrew around Rs 15,000 from the student’s account after forcing him to disclose his ATM PIN, according to the FIR.
After the accused left the student at the ATM kiosk premises, he went to a nearby hospital and got treated for his injuries. On Monday, an FIR was registered by officials from the Baramati Taluka police station.
“We arrested three people within hours after the complaint was registered,” said Ganesh Ingale, deputy superintendent of police (Baramati Division) of Pune Rural Police. Officials said that the suspects are in their 20s and are residents of the Baramati area.
