RANCHI, DEC 4: Police have taken into custody five persons in connection with the assault on three nuns and the alleged rape of another inmate of the St Anna Girls' High School convent at Karpunia in Bokaro on the night of December 1. R.B.Choudhary, the officer in charge of the Gandhinagar police station under whose jurisdiction the school in Bokaro district falls, has also been suspended for dereliction of duty.However, a controversy has arisen over whether the woman, who works as a cook at the convent, was, in fact, raped.Doctors at the Central Coalfields Ltd Hospital in Gandhinagar - where the assault victims were taken for treatment in the morning - had confirmed that the woman was raped. But Bokaro SP K.S. Meena claimed today that the medical report with the police did not confirm the rape. Inspector S.N. Ram added: ``The medical report in our possession does not show any sign of sexual intercourse or semen in her clothes.''The nuns are outraged at this. ``Why did the Bokaro SP talk about the victim's medical report without meeting or talking to her?'' they ask. Asked for a response, Meena said that he he stood by what he had said earlier.Asked if the police report had been doctored, Meena refused to comment. But under growing pressure from the Roman Catholic Church - to which the convent belongs - he has agreed to have her examined again by a team of doctors.Although Meena was at a loss to explain the motive of the culprits, he saidthe police had taken into cognisance of the FIR filed by the schoolPrincipal Patras Merry against 12-15 unidentified youths under severalSections of the Indian Penal Code, including 376 (rape).The five being interrogated include: Kabuli Miyan, Murangu Patar, Meethu Mishra, Shambhu Gaur and Heera Mehar, Bokaro SP K.S. Meena said, adding that police had set up a task force to arrest all culprits responsible for the crime.A section of armed police has been deployed at the school, which remained closed even today. Despite all these measures, none of the nine women staff at the school are quite ready to trust the police, given the controversy over the medical report.Meanwhile, in protest against the incident, a group of about 200 peoplecomprising a dozen nuns under the banner of the Adivasi Chatra Sangh - a bodyof Christian youths - held a meeting at the town centre near Albert Ekkachowk in Ranchi, paralysing traffic for more than three hours thisafternoon. Later,many of them pelted stones at pedestrians and compelledtraders to down while the police looked the other way.
