Four years after woman’s rights activist Suzette Jordan was gangraped by five men in a moving car, the main accused in the case has been nabbed. On Thursday night, Kader Khan was apprehended from a hideout in Delhi on Thursday night along with an accomplice named Ali.
The two will be produced before a local court in Kolkata on Friday, reported DNA.
Jordan was raped by these five men on the night of 5 February, 2012 after they met at a nightclub in the upmarket area of Park Street Kolkata and promised to give her a lift back home. She was threatened with life and then thrown off the car near Kolkata city intersection. Joradan, was then 40 years old and a divorcee with two daughters.
She died of multi-organ failure after being diagnosed with encephalitis on 13 March 2015 and on 10 December 2015, nine months after Jordan’s death, three accused who were on trial in the case were pronounced guilty. The Additional Sessions Judge Chiranjib Bhattacharya of the City Sessions Court had pronounced Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj guilty of gangrape, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and common intention, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The court sentenced them to a term of 10 years in jail. At the time Kader Khan and Ali were on the run.
Suzette became a symbol of courage after she refused to acknowledge her identity as
“Park Street rape victim” and revealed her identity on television in June 2013, fought her case against heavy odds. The case was a landmark one in the sense that even after Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee called it a “cooked up” case and alleged that she was trying to malign the government , she fought the case and was supported by the public.
Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar called the entire episode “a sex deal gone wrong”, while minister Madan Mitra questioned her character by asking her choice of clothing and the fact that she was having “alcohol” in a night-club so late at night. He also called it a “fabricated complaint meant to extort money”.
