In what the Opposition parties called “height of insensitivity” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday questioned the veracity of as heinous a crime as rape a day after the news of the death of a 14-year-old gang-rape victim from Hanshkhali block in Nadia district became public.

Lambasting the opposition parties for “finding politics in every small incident” the Chief Minister said “some people have developed a habit of raising a hue and cry over every small incident like they are doing in the case of Nadia where a minor was allegedly gang-raped… but who would say whether she was raped or whether she was pregnant or whether she had been slapped by someone or things like that …

“while the incident happened last Monday and the girl died next day why was it reported on Saturday when she had already been cremated … and why no postmortem was done … why are these questions raised when all evidences are gone … is it because you can create theories … still we have arrested the person named in the FIR.”

Banerjee also claimed quoting the police that she had information that the victim had an affair with the accused and “the police cannot do anything if you fall in love because this is not Hathras.”

Curiously, the girl was not only not taken to a hospital and no postmortem was done after her death but also she was cremated without any death certificate.

The Opposition parties immediately hit back recalling how the Chief Minister had made similar insensitive statement after the Park Street rape case when about a decade ago when she called it a state-managed drama and her party colleagues it an affair between a “service provider and her client.”

Bengal Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chowdhury immediately hit back wondering why the Chief Minister was defending the rapists. “Is Mamata Banerjee the advocate of the rapists … is she trying to save them as they are from the TMC … it has already been proved in Bengal that all crime is linked to TMC and all theft is done in her name … she is the crown of the thieves and the empress of all the thieves.”

The incident took place last Monday in the Shyamnagar locality of Gagna panchayat of Hanshkhali block in Nadia district when the girl was invited to a party --- at the house of the accused. She was allegedly drugged and then gang-raped by her tormentors.

Brajgopal who raped the 14-year-old minor along with his friends is the son of Gajna Gram Panchayat member Samar Gowla and was arrested on Sunday evening.

Hours after the rape the victim was dropped at her house with a warning that her house and family members would be burnt alive if a thing was revealed to the police, sources said.

The ordeal would not stop there. After the severely bleeding girl succumbed to her injuries in the wee hours of Tuesday the henchmen of the accused returned and hurriedly cremated her at the nearby funeral ground, her relatives who informed the police as late as on Saturday said.

On why the family did not call up the police or why they would not visit a hospital, locals who raised a hullabaloo after coming to know about the incident, said the perpetrators of the crime had warned them against doing so.

“They told the family that they were free to call a doctor but should not go to a hospital or call the police or else the whole family would be burnt alive … so the petrified kin refrained from taking to a hospital,” said a local adding that they gathered courage to lodge a police complaint after an NGO supported them.

Meanwhile, even as the State witnessed protests at various places more gang-rapes were reported from Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas and Raiganj in North 24 Parganas sources said.