BANGALORE: In yet another shocking act of depraved violence against women , a 21-year-old south Asian student of the country’s premier National Law School of India University was allegedly gang-raped by a group of seven to eight drunk men in the adjoining Jnanabharathi campus of Bangalore University late on Saturday night.

The second-year undergraduate student was out with a male friend, who works with an IT major, in his Volkswagen Polo car in a forested area of the 1100-acre campus, just about 2km from the Centre for Gandhian Studies, when they were attacked. While the male friend, who is from Kollam in Kerala, was brutally beaten up, the girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by the gang.

Established in 1987, the NLSIU is a dream destination for law students. The campus has girls and boys in equal numbers, many of them of different nationalities.

Quoting from the student’s complaint, the police said that around eight Kannada-speaking hoodlums arrived on foot around 9pm and smashed the windshield of the parked car with iron rods. They then asked the terrorized couple to get out of the car, hit the boy repeatedly on his face, and dragged them deeper into the thickly wooded campus, 14km from the city on the Mysore highway.

One of the attackers asked the duo to hand over their valuables. When the frightened boy told them his wallet was in the car, they asked him to fetch it. As the boy walked up to his car, the men dragged the girl deeper into the woods, the complaint said.

The boy returned from his car with the wallet but found the girl and the men missing. He searched frantically for his friend and ran into a police constable. The cop joined the boy in the search. Around 1am, the boy got a call from the girl, saying she was in the hostel, said the police quoting the complaint.

According to the girl’s complaint, the assailants snatched her iPad and other electronic gadgets from her and raped her. They then walked her to the hostel on NLSIU campus where she stays, returned the gadgets, and thrust a 10-rupee note into her hands. She walked back to her hostel room and called her friend for help.

The two immediately lodged a complaint at the Jnanabharathi police station. The girl was taken to Vani Vilas Hospital where she was medically examined. The results are awaited.

“We combed the area on Saturday night and Sunday morning looking for evidence. A case of rape has been booked as per the victim’s complaint," said deputy commissioner of police SN Siddaramappa.

Jnanabharathi police were tight-lipped about the victim’s whereabouts. All they said was they were investigating the complaint. A team of policemen was seen escorting the girl to the scene of the crime at 5.30pm on Sunday.

However, the police sought to play down the gang-rape allegations, saying the girl bore no injury or struggle marks during the medical examination.

When TOI contacted NLSIU registrar V Nagaraj, he said, “Talk to the vice-chancellor. Talk to the police who are investigating.” Vice-chancellor R Venkata Rao was not in the country, according to the woman who took the call at his residence. Students and fellow hostellers have refused to talk.

Policing the Jnanabharati campus poses tough policing challenges. In 2005, a construction worker was gang-raped by taxi drivers on the campus. Other incidents of crime include chain-snatching and robbery attempts. For over five years now, the campus gates are shut between 7pm to 5am to prevent its being used as a thoroughfare. It’s also a popular jogging haunt for residents from neighbouring areas.