Bengaluru rape case: Security staff claim they sent the woman out of the park, cops disagree

A day after a 35-year-old woman was allegedly gangraped in Bengaluru’s Cubbon Park, several contradictions have emerged related to the case. The woman is said to have come to a tennis club in the area to apply for membership of the club but was sent back because no one was present . According to the police, two security guards approached her at about 9.30 pm after seeing her wandering alone. According to the police, the woman asked the guards for help to find her way out of the park, after which the guards, under the pretext of giving her directions, took her to a secluded spot and allegedly raped her. [caption id=“attachment_2504916” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Karnataka police. Representational image. Image courtesy: PTI[/caption] However, an official of the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association told  The Times of India, that after noticing that the woman was still there, they called the police, who took her away from the park. The KSLTA official is reported to have expressed a suspicion that the woman may have returned to Cubbon Park after she was escorted out by the police. Even as the police have registered an FIR in the matter, it remains unclear as to whether KSLTA officials did in fact call the police to get the woman to leave the park. From the reported claims of the KSLTA official, it is also not known why the woman returned to the park after she had asked for help to exit the premises. The official claimed that their staff members did not have anything to do with the incident, and that security guards attached to Cubbon Park may be responsible. The police, however, denied the claim that they had escorted the woman out of the park, according to The Times of India report. The police are said to be questioning the security agency and find out whether background checks of the two guards had been done, according to a report in The Indian Express_._ The names of the guards have not been revealed. The incident is the third such instance in a little over a month, according to a report in The New Indian Express. Two of the three instances are said to have taken place in busy areas which have regular police patrolling. Earlier this month, a 19-year-old woman was allegedly raped in a moving bus by its driver at Hoskote on the outskirts of Bengaluru. A report by The Hindu notes that Cubbon Park earlier had a reputation for being the site of several illegal activities, including prostitution. In 2004, a High Court judge had taken the initiative to put in place a rule to close the gates between 10 pm and 6 am.