Park St rape: SC seeks WB's reply on plea of accused

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted another two weeks to the West Bengal government to respond to its notice on a plea by an accused in the Park Street gangrape case against denial of bail to him by the Calcutta high court.

A bench of justices A K Patnaik and H L Gokhale had issued a notice to the state government on November 26, 2012 and sought its reply within three weeks on a plea by Sumit Bajaj, one of the youths accused of gangraping an Anglo-Indian woman in a car on February 5 last year.

The high court had rejected Bajaj's bail plea along with that of another accused in the case on October 19, 2012.

The woman was picked up by the youth from the road in front of a pub at upmarket Park Street area in Kolkata and then gangraped.

In the FIR lodged by the woman on February 9, 2012, she had alleged that she was gangraped by five youths in a car at gunpoint and was also threatened.

Besides Bajaj, the other accused in the case are Nishad Khan alias Tusi, Nasir Ali, Kadir Khan alias Kadir Sheikh and Mohammad Ali.

While Bajaj, Nishad and Nasir are behind bars, Kadir and Ali are still absconding.