Police Hunt Assailants Of Students

A female student was sexually assaulted by two men last Monday night near Quincy House, University and Cambridge police officials said yesterday.

The assailants grabbed the student between 8 and 9 p.m. on Plympton St. near the intersection of Mt. Auburn St. and attempted to pull her from the sidewalk, "touching private parts of her body," Saul L. Chafin, chief of the University police, said yesterday.

Chafin said the student screamed for assistance and the assailants filed on foot toward Memorial Drive.

The victim refused to comment on the incident yesterday and would not verify accounts given by police.

Investigations

Cambridge officers were the first to respond at the scene, Chafin said. Detective William Maher, press liaison for the Cambridge police, said yesterday that officers investigated an indecent assault and battery and unarmed robbery around 9 p.m., but refused further comment on the incident.

Because of a question of jurisdiction, the University's Sensitive Crime Unit--formed last year to investigate sex crimes--is not presently investigating the assault, Chafin said, adding that the victim refused medical treatment at University Health Services after the incident.

No Arrest

Chafin said two suspects matching the description given by the student were apprehended later in the evening by Cambridge officers, but the victim was unable to identify them positively.

No arrests have been made in the incident, Maher said.

According to monthly University police statistics released October 24, the incident is the first sexual assault investigated by Harvard officers this year. Last year at the same time, one assault had also been reported.