Kolkata gang-rape main accused Monojit ‘Mango’ Mishra a repeat offender, say former students-OxBig News Network

The prime accused in the Kolkata law college gang-rape case, Monojit Mishra, is a history-sheeter having a slew of pending cases of sexual harassment and violent crimes registered against him, police said on Monday.

Mishra’s ties with criminal activities are not just confined within the boundaries of the South Calcutta Law College where he allegedly led the sexual assault against his latest victim on June 25 but he has been previously arrested and charge-sheeted for violent crimes committed outside the campus as well, police added.

PTI retains copies of at least seven formal complaints and FIRs, besides the latest FIR indicting Mishra and two other students of gang-rape, which show that the ex-student has pending cases of sexual assault registered against him across multiple police stations in south Kolkata, including at Kasba, Gariahat, Kalighat, Tollygunge and Anandapur police stations.

Mishra vanished from police radar in 2013, the same year he took admission in the law college, after he was charged with stabbing a youth on the Chetla Bridge under Kalighat police station jurisdiction and was rusticated from the institution.

He had already joined the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad ranks by then and was wielding considerable influence in his institution, a former student of the college recollected.

“In December 2016, he was accused of leading a mob of outsiders to vandalise the college premises. FIRs and counter-FIRs were lodged at the Kasba police station in connection with the incident, but for some unknown reason, the cases got dropped,” Titas Manna, a former student of the college told a local news channel.

Mishra resurfaced, police said, in 2017 when he took re-admission in the same college to study law and remained a student until he passed out in 2022.

Some of his batch mates and contemporaries describe him as a ‘perpetual trouble maker’ who harassed girls inside the TMCP-run union office on the college campus on flimsy grounds.

In fact, official complaints made by students in the past reveal Mishra displayed a consistent and disturbing pattern of sexual aggression for years.

Frustrated survivors of his assaults allege he received systemic protection throughout which emboldened him to carry out his crimes with impunity.

Manna alleged that in 2018 two female students had lodged a complaint against Mishra before the college authorities and an FIR with the Gariahat police station alleging molestation and threats.

“A case was started and the victims submitted their confidential statements before a judicial magistrate. Strangely, however, no arrests were made in that case,” Manna told a local TV channel.

“We know another FIR was filed against him for outraging the modesty of a woman in 2022 while in May 2024, the college authorities lodged a police complaint against him for assaulting a security guard,” he said.

However, Manna said he wasn’t aware of any follow-up legal action taken against Mishra in all these years and alleged he was allowed to go scot-free every single time.

A classmate said the accused, better known as Mango among his friends, used to summon girls to the union room, drink alcohol there and was cautioned several times. “We tried to stop him but he continued his belligerent ways,” he said.

College authorities knew everything about him but looked the other way. Such was his clout. Some girls filed a formal sexual harassment complaint to the teacher-in-charge against him, but nothing happened, he said.

A former female student said she was aware of Mishra molesting one of her friends during a students’ picnic some years ago.

Manna said though Monojit held the post of TMCP vice president when he was a student of the college, he continued to throw around his weight till the incident despite having no official political connection.

“He was the self-declared president of the college unit of TMCP but was thrown out by the organisation and multiple leaders had warned him not to enter the college premises. He continued to ignore those warnings,” another former student said.

“He framed two other students and had them arrested for a self-inflicted wound. Their lives are ruined because they have to now appear before courts.

“No student had the authority to go against him as he used to run his own durbar on the campus staying till late evening. We know he had been appointed as a casual employee of the college as record keeper which emboldened him as everyone is intimidated by his political connections,” he said.