Within a week of writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking enactment of stringent laws in rape cases — all in the backdrop of the nationwide protests against the rape and murder of a postgraduate lady doctor at RG Kar Medical College Hospital in Kolkata — Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday shot him off a second letter reiterating the earlier demand and expressed her dismay at the alleged lukewarm response her first missive found in South Block.
“You may kindly recall my letter number 44-CM dated August 22, 2024,” Mamata wrote, adding with a tinge of discontent that though such issues warranted immediate attention she is yet to receive any reply from him.
“No reply was received from your end on such a sensitive issue,” the Chief Minister wrote in her second letter mentioning, however, that she had indeed received a general letter from the Minister of Woman and Child Development which, she said, was a “generic reply” concerning a serious issue.
“I am of the thought that the seriousness of the subject and its relevance to society has not been adequately appreciated as this generic reply reflects,” Mamata wrote providing details of the measures her Government has taken to prevent such offences.
Mamata’s back-to-back express communications come in the wake of tremendous pressure her Government is facing from the community of doctors, the civil society and general public as a whole with streets of the State getting flooded with huge rallies demanding justice for the 31-year-old lady doctor who was brutally raped and murdered in the wee hours of August 9 even as she was taking rest inside a seminar hall of the hospital after completion of 36 hours of non-stop duty.
Mamata’s letter also comes in the wake of her Government announcing amendments in the Central laws through a special Assembly Session summoned for that purpose on September 2.
The State Government has convened a Special Assembly Session on September 2 for placing an amendment Bill and passing a stringent law against rape, senior Bengal Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay earlier said.
The State Cabinet has already given clearance to the tabling of the Amendment Bill, he said. Mamata had a couple of days ago told a students’ rally that she had requested Modi to pass stringent laws in these cases.
“But if the Centre cannot pass stringent laws… then we will pass it in the State by convening a Special Session of the Assembly… we want a strong law so that the accused can be tried in a fast-track court and given death sentence in 15 days’ time,” she said.
Meanwhile, Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose on Friday met Home Minister Amit Shah at his residence where they apparently discussed the situation arising out of the rape and murder of the lady doctor at RH Kar Hospital, sources said.
According to sources, the Governor provided detailed information on the current situation in Bengal. State BJP president and Union Minister Sukanto Majumdar had earlier met the Governor with a demand of stringent action against the State Government for massive lathi charge on the students who had marched to the State Secretariat at Nabanna seeking the Chief Minister’s resignation.
In a related development the National Human Rights Commission has written a letter to Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal to explain the lathi-charge on the student rallyists on Wednesday.
