The vacant and deserted areas along a mud road connecting Brindhavan Nagar near the Coimbatore International Airport and SIHS Colony have long been the hang-outs of anti-social elements at night.
The place saw unusual movement of police vehicles and searches by police personnel on Sunday night, after a 20-year-old college student was allegedly gang-raped by three men.
The student and her male friend were targeted by the assailants around 11 p.m., when they were in a car on a vacant land, hardly 100 metres from the compound wall of the airport’s runway.
Residents said anti-social elements occupy the vacant areas at night for drinking, substance abuse, and other activities, due to which there are less takers for the mud road after 9 p.m. Incidents of robbery and assault had also been reported from the area.
“There is no patrolling of the road by the police at night, due to which anti-social elements hang out at these places. The people are afraid to pass through the road. There are no lights, as it is a path through vacant land that the people use to ease travel between Avinashi Road and SIHS Colony,” a shop owner on Brindhavan Nagar Road said.
