The friend of the medical student who was raped near a private medical college in West Bengal's Durgapur has been arrested by the police, taking the total arrests in the case to six.

Media had reported earlier that the woman, a second-year MBBS student who had gone to West Bengal from Odisha to study, and her friend had stepped out of the IQ City Medical College in Durgapur's Shivapur area on October 10 and were accosted by a few people. She was allegedly taken to a forested area and raped.

In his police complaint, the survivor's father had named the friend and said he had "misled her and took her to a vacant place under false pretexts".

On Tuesday, before the friend was taken into custody, Asansol-Durgapur Commissioner of Police Sunil Kumar Choudhary had said five people had been arrested, whose presence had been established at the place where the crime was carried out, and the mobile phone snatched from the survivor had been recovered.

The police, Choudhary said, had also found that the survivor was sexually assaulted by one person.

"Till now, as per the technical and scientific evidence collected and the statement of the woman, we have found that physical sexual assault has been committed by one accused. The involvement of all five accused is being investigated," he said.

The police commissioner said twice that the friend's "role was not beyond doubt".

"The friend of the woman, who was also present at the place of occurrence... his role is also not beyond doubt. We are investigating his role also. We have examined him several times... His examination is going on. I want to say his role is also not beyond doubt," he emphasised.

Later in the evening, police said that the friend had been arrested. Officials said the woman and the friend had stepped out for dinner that night. "The friend had been taken to the scene of crime and interrogated several times before he was arrested," said an official.

Source: NDTV