The City Sessions Court on Thursday convicted six persons in the Kamduni gang-rape case in which a poor yet meritorious college student was accosted and dragged inside an abandoned industrial area while she was returning from college raped and murdered with sickening brutality in June 2013.
The Additional Sessions Judge Sanchita Kar held Ansar Ali, Aminul, Ali, Saiful Ali, Aminul Islam, Imanul Ali and Bhola Naskar guilty of gang-rape-and-murder under Sections 376(d), 302, 120B, 201 of the Indian Penal Code. Saiful Ali who accosted and then dragged the victim inside the premises was also found guilty under Sections 342 and 109 wrongful confinement and abetment.
Two other accused Rafiqul Islam and Nur Ali were given benefit of doubt and acquitted, Government lawyers said. Meanwhile with Assembly elections round the corner sources at State headquarters at Nabanna said decisions had been taken to move the High Court immediately to block the release of Rafiqul and Nur who are reportedly related to a local Trinamool Congress leader.
Happening a year after the high-profile Park Street gang-rape case the one at Kamduni set off State-wide protest on account of sloppiness showed by the police and the Government leading even to a heated exchange of words between the villagers and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who visited the spot after ten days of the incident.
The brutality of the incident almost matched that of the Nirbhaya case even as the victim was not only raped but was tortured in a “monstrous manner” lawyers said. Her legs were torn apart from two sides even as she refused to give in to her tormentors’ demands, sources said.
The incident that still remains one of the most brutal one in the history of the State triggered political flare-up after the Chief Minister publicly alleged that the villagers who were leading the protest against police inaction were “agents employed by the Maoists and CPI(M)s.”
“The Chief Minister owes an answer to the people of the State after the verdict as she is the one who had said that those protesting against the crime are CPI(M) agents,” said Marxist leader Sujan Chakrabarty.
Attacking the Government and the police for remaining passive in such cases PCC president Adhir Chowdhury said “it took 2-and-half-years for the Government to get justice for the victim while two of the accused secured a release for lack of evidence just because they have Trinamool connections.”
BJP’s locket Chatterjee said “the verdict has once again proved that the Trinamool is running a Government of goons.”
With the Government on most of the occasion remaining on the denial mode and with the names of Trinamool goons getting embroiled directly in heinous crimes Bengal had in the last 3-4 years been amongst the first two States in terms of rape, murder and atrocities against women.
