KOLKATA: A young couple at Baghajatin in south Kolkata has been arrested on charges of allegedly raping a 22-year-old woman at their rented home last week.

Based on a complaint lodged by the woman at Patuli police station on Monday, eight days after the incident, cops picked up the duo from their home. They were produced before a city court later in the day and were remanded in police custody for 10 days.

The accused persons however have told cops that the intercourse between the man and the woman was consensual and that it was a case of surrogacy gone wrong. Police said the man worked as a mason and the wife worked at a bag manufacturing unit in

.

“The accused persons claim that the woman had agreed to become a surrogate mother and bear the man’s child as the wife was incapable of conceiving. Hence the husband had become intimate with the woman at their home on February 9. We are probing all the angles and have started a thorough investigation into the case,” said a senior officer of

.

The officer said, according to preliminary investigation, they have learned that the accused's wife and the complainant knew each other from before. They met recently at a temple in south Kolkata where the complainant was waiting in a queue for free food. The complainant is jobless and her father is mentally unstable and has told cops that she often has to sleep hungry.

“The complainant claims the woman had lured her to their house on the pretext of offering a job. But the woman ended up forcing her to have sex with the husband,” said the officer.

A preliminary investigation however revealed that the couple, in their late twenties, are married for five years and are childless. The wife said she had two miscarriages over the years and doctors had advised her against pregnancy so she asked the complainant to cooperate as a surrogate mother. “The accused claim they had offered the woman daily food, money and a piece of land at their village in exchange of the pregnancy and the child. But we are checking their claims and are recording detailed statement of the complainant as well as the accused persons,” said the officer.

(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)