Indian police release CCTV images of suspects in hunt for bandits who raped elderly nun

West Bengal police have released footage of four of the eight suspects after the woman was left needing surgery following the attack

This closed circuit television image released by West Bengal Police shows three suspects in the rape of an elderly nun at the convent (AFP/Getty Images)

Indian police have released CCTV footage of three suspects in their hunt for those responsible for the alleged rape of an elderly nun in a convent near Calcutta on Saturday.

Arnab Ghosh, a police superintendent working on the case, told AFP at least two of the men appeared armed, and the rest carried tools with which to carry out the burglary.

“CCTV footage showed that six men, aged between 20 and 30, scaled the boundary wall around 11.40 m and entered the school and disconnected the telephone lines,” he told the agency.

The elderly woman was gang-raped after she tried to stop a group of men from robbing a Christian missionary school in the Nadia district of West Bengal.

The men had tied up the school’s security guards before entering a room where the nuns slept. When the elderly nun tried to block them she was taken into another room and allegedly raped by the men, police said.

The woman was admitted to hospital in a serious condition following the incident.

The robbers escaped with cash, a mobile phone, a laptop and a camera, all of which belonged to the school.

The CCTV footage is from the convent’s staff room, and police are offering a reward of 100,000 rupees (£1,074) for any information, Sky News reports.