Bengal continued to quickly scale the ladder towards becoming what the Opposition and sociologists called - a "rape capital" of India with sexual offences against women, particularly  the minors taking place almost on a daily basis. Even a sustained three-month 'apolitical movement' bringing life in Kolkata and Siliguri almost to a standstill seemed to have failed to knock sense in the police administration and the

criminals, the critics say.

"Bengal is fast turning out to be a rape capital of India … the criminals are confident that there is nothing that the police can do to them because the top political leadership is backing them," said Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Manoranjan Byapari. Cut to North 24 Parganas.

On saturday, a man was arrested for raping a  nine-year-old girl in Gaighata area of the district.

Local BJP MLA Subrata Thakur said, “The family members of the accused along with the local  Trinamool Congress leaders are threatening the victim’s family." The local TMC leader Prasenjit Ghosh denied such charges.  Shift to North Bengal.

Friday's incident at Gaighata took place within 24 hours of another minor girl being raped in a similar manner at Kumargram in Alipurduar district. The girl was abducted and raped in a nearby forest while she was bathing in a river.

The culprit was arrested on Saturday, police SP Y Raghuvangshi said. The Kumargram incident followed a rape and murder that took place at Falakata a few miles away in the same district where a toddler was raped and murdered on Thursday by two persons one of who - a 42-year-old man - was lynched by the locals while his accomplice was

subsequently arrested, sources said.

The local people had been staging a Kolkata-like movement, blockading roads for the past two days in demand of justice for the victim. Back to South Bengal. A similar incident took place at Domkal in Murshidabad district a middle-aged person was on Saturday arrested on charges of raping a seven-year-old minor girl.

Locals said the reportedly to be the grand uncle of the victim lured her with chocolates inside his room and there raped her on Thursday night.

A similar report was reported from nearby Burdwan district where a school girl was raped on Saturday sources said.

Domkal happened a within hours of a newlywed woman being snatched away from her husband and gangraped in the wee hours of Friday under an overpass at Kalyanai in Nadia district.

Four accused, all auto drivers have been arrested in that connection.

The successive incidents took place within a few weeks of a rape and murder 10-year-old girl taking place at Mahishmari village in Kultali off Joynagar in South 24 Parganas district. The locals went on a rampage soon after the incident torched the local police station alleging the police refused to act on time when the parents reported the incident.

A similar incident took place the next week a few miles away at Gosaba where a 60-year-old man raped a minor and was subsequently arrested while both the incidents.

The back-to-back

incidents took place last month almost within a week of a many being lynched at Patashpur village in East Midnapore for raping and poisoning to death a housewife, sources said.

Alleging police inaction the angry neighbours dragged the alleged culprit out of his house and clubbed him to death, police said.

With the frequent incidents of rape - in some places accompanied with murder - taking place in the backdrop of a sustained movement post the rape and murder of a postgraduate lady doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital the sociologists have joined the opposition politicians in condemning the lackadaisical approach of the Government in dealing with such crimes.

"Where the Government and the police administration itself takes sides of the criminals by shielding them as we have seen in the case of RG Kar what do you expect from the local police men … they are afraid of conducting arrests because they would not know which criminal is a

TMC man or who has whose hands behind ... so we have been consistently demanding the resignation of the State's Police Minister who is also the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee," said Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari. Central committee member Sujan Chakrabarty said that "where the police acts in a partisan manner the people not only lose faith in them but also the criminals get encouraged … these

rapes are an aftermath of that encouragement”

Congress' Adhir Chowdhury said, "the way the incidents of lynching are taking place we may see more such incidents after rape because the people are fast losing faith in the police," he said.