For cash, nun dragged across seven rooms - Sisters tied up and locked in room; guard forced to whistle to send safety signal

Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary High School bring out a rally in Ranaghat
on Sunday to express solidarity. Picture by Abhi Ghosh

TT, March 15: Attackers had dragged the elderly nun of the Nadia school across seven rooms while assaulting her and ordered her to disclose where cash had been kept, before one of them raped her, police said today.

The preliminary probe of the police has revealed that when the 74-year-old nun said there was no money in the residential quarters she lived in, she was beaten up even more.

"The suspects kept two other nuns confined to a ground-floor room of the building. They took the elderly lady to all seven rooms of the two-storey building and asked her to show the places where money had been kept. When she said there was no money in the rooms, the attackers dragged her to a room and raped her," a CID officer probing the case said.

The police suspect insiders' role in the operation as the attackers seemed to know that the elderly nun looked after the finances of the school.

"Her segregation from the two others is a vital lead. The nun is the finance head of the school. The attackers' decision to keep the two other nuns confined to a room hints at insiders' role in the incident. The gang seemed to have prior information that she was the finance head and they kept asking her about the places where money had been kept," an officer said.

After the sexual assault, the miscreants locked up the three nuns and the lone security guard, whom they had overpowered earlier, in a room on the ground floor. They trussed up the four, gagged them and disconnected the telephone connections in the house before breaking into the administrative building and looting Rs 7 lakh. They also took away some valuables from the chapel on the ground floor of the residential quarters.

The probe has revealed that the attackers had forced the security guard of the school to respond to the whistles of the guards hired by the town committee of residents.

"It is the usual practice for the town guards to come in front of the school and whistle once at night. The school guard also whistles, which sends the signal that everything is all right. When the town guards came on the round early on Saturday, the attackers forced the school guard to whistle in reply. The school's guard told us this during questioning," the CID officer said.

During overnight raids on different places, the CID detained eight persons. None of their faces matches the four visible on the CCTV footage. One of the detainees has been identified as Swapan, who has criminal antecedents according to the police.

"There is a case lodged at the local Gangnapur police station against Swapan. We are interrogating him and are yet to ascertain where he was during the attack," a CID officer investigating the case said.

While seven persons were rounded up from Nandighat, Dhantala and Duttapulia, all within 10km of the school, the remaining one was picked up from adjoining North 24-Parganas.

A CID team visited Convent of Jesus and Mary High School today with a sniffer dog. The dog was taken to all the areas where the attackers were spotted by CCTV cameras. The dog ran out of the compound towards National Highway 34.

Sleuths visited Alipore and Presidency jails and showed the inmates who are from Ranaghat and its adjoining areas the photographs recorded by the CCTV cameras at the school. "But no one could identify the suspects," a CID officer said.

The police said they were probing whether any "internal feud" at the school was responsible for the incident.

"There were differences of opinion between a section of students and teachers over organising programmes on Children's Day," another CID officer said. "Besides, three security guards were dismissed in December. Whether the dismissal played a role is also under our scanner," he added.