Two students raped at gunpoint at theological college
GUNMEN yesterday pounced on two university students who were studying late at the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTC), dragged them behind the building and raped them at gunpoint.
Security guards stationed at the campus say they did not see the gunmen pass, but said they could have scaled the fence.
The college has since announced that an overnight canine patrol would be added to the college’s security.
According to Reverend Trevor Edwards, acting president of UTC, a security company is usually called in if any suspicious activity is observed.
“We usually set a curfew [for students] of 11:00 pm, based on the kind of security arrangements we have,” Edwards explained. The UTC campus has a population of about 70 students, and about 60 students are housed there, from both UWI and UTC.
Edwards told the Observer yesterday that the two young women, who are students of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, lived at UTC.
He said they had been sitting on a bench on one of the outside corridors of the institution when two men with guns attacked them in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
“Students usually study late in the night along the corridors, [but] most them had gone in by about midnight,” he said.
“The two female students were sitting there about 12:30/12:45 and they were pounced upon by two gunmen, and they [the men] took them [the girls] to the back of the premises and sexually assaulted them,” Edwards added.
He said that after the ordeal, the girls returned to their quarters and alerted other students.
Wednesday’s incident was the second of its kind on the UTC campus. About 18 months ago another female student was raped there.
Yesterday, the Papine police said while they had heard of the latest incident, it had not been reported to them.
Activity on the campus was waning yesterday evening when the Observer visited. But one student, Patrick Cole, who lives off campus, said news of the rape shocked him. He said since Wednesday morning there had been a steady stream of counsellors on the campus.
Edwards said the counsellors had been called in mostly from the UWI Health Centre. He said most of yesterday morning was spent dealing with the shock and emotional pain of staff and students, “in addition to attending to the specific students who have been affected”.