A medical student from Odisha was allegedly gang-raped on Friday night in West Bengal’s Durgapur district, The Hindu reported.

The woman is a second-year MBBS student enrolled at a private medical college in Durgapur. On Friday night, she had gone out with a male friend, when she was allegedly gang-raped by a group of men near the campus.

The police have arrested three men in connection with the case, and are searching for two others, India Today reported. The police are also questioning the student’s friend about the sequence of events.

The student’s father said a friend of his daughter called him and said that she had been raped. “They asked me to come here [Durgapur] as soon as possible,” he told the newspaper. “They [assailants] stole her mobile and took money from her.”

The alleged gang-rape sparked protests from students at the medical college. Opposition leaders also alleged that the offence reflected the lack of women’s safety in West Bengal.

State Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Agnimitra Paul remarked that women in West Bengal are not safe even though the state has a woman chief minister.

“The Mamata Banerjee government has completely failed to ensure women’s safety,” Paul said in a social media post. “Today, every woman in Bengal is asking how safe are we in this Bengal?”

Communist Party of India (Marxist) State President Mohammed Salim said such crimes reflected the law and order situation in West Bengal. “We have sent our activists to the hospital so the authorities cannot bury evidence and mislead the investigations,” he said, according to The Hindu.

State Minister for Women and Child Development Shashi Panja said that the student is undergoing medical treatment and will also be given counselling.

“The parents have expressed faith in the police investigation,” Panja said, according to NDTV. “Such crimes should not be politicised. Unfortunately, the BJP always views such incidents through a political lens.”

On June 25, a student had allegedly been gang-raped inside a law college in Kolkata, after which three men were arrested.

In August last year, a 31-year-old 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered on the premises of the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. The incident sparked protests across the country.

A civic police volunteer, Sanjay Roy, was in January convicted in the case and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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