In the backdrop of a Statewide agitation for justice for the Kolkata lady doctor who was raped and murdered early this month while on duty turning fast into a movement for “change of the system that harbours rapists and the corrupt,” the Mamata Banerjee Government of Bengal on Tuesday got an anti-rape “Aparajita” Bill passed unanimously. This makes West Bengal first State to bring in amendments to Central laws dealing with such offences.

The Opposition parties, however, called it a diversionary tactics in order to contain the Statewide unrest and assuage peoples’ anit-Government feelings.

Notwithstanding stringent remarks from the Opposition Bench, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari to help get the Bill signed by Governor CV Ananda Bose and President Droupadi Murmu.

Apart from prescribing life imprisonment until death, the Bill, christened ‘Aparajita Woman and Child Bill (West Bengal Criminal Laws and Amendment) 2024, provides for death penalty for a repeat offender in cases of rape and sexual offences that lead to a victim’s death or leave her in a vegetative state.

The Bill was passed at a time when citizens including medical staff of Kolkata formed a 17-km long human chain from Patuli in South Kolkata to Ultadanga in the North. The Bill was also passed when a separate detachment of junior doctors and members of the civil society staged a joint rally in front of the Lal Bazar police headquarters demanding the resignation of Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal for failing to act in an impartial manner.

Saying that rape was a “curse on the human society and that there was a need for social reforms to stop such crimes, the Chief Minister said that “the Bill seeks to plug the loopholes in the central legislation.”

She also appealed to the Opposition BJP to get the Governor’s assent “instead of politicising the issue,” even as Leader of Opposition attacked the Government for supporting a system where rapes and murders had become the order of the day.

“It is your Government and the police that had investigated the infamous Kamduni rape case in such a manner that all the accused save one got acquitted and even the one who was not got his death sentence commuted to life sentence … if this was not the result of the Government’s apathy to such cases then what is … In Kamduni rape case the Government changed 16 Public Prosecutors to ensure that the rapists who were the members of the TMC get acquitted,” Adhikari said.

Kamduni rape case had taken place in the northern fringes of Kolkata where a college girl was abducted and gang-raped and murdered by some alleged ruling party men while she was returning home from her college. Her legs were torn apart from two sides.

He said that there was nothing in the new Bill that was not there in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita adding, the Aparajita Bill was an attempt to divert the people’s attention from the RG Kar case.

However the Chief Minister hit back showing how crime against women in the BJP-ruled States like UP, Gujarat were increasing while in Bengal the women got justice getting justice

Praising the Bill TMC’s Kunal Ghosh said that “history has been created in Bengal … as the Mamata Banerjee led government to pass a Bill providing  for stringent punishment to those involved in incidents of rape and murder.”

Meanwhile in a related development the former Principal of RGKMCH Sandip Ghosh who was on Tuesday arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on charges of corruption was on Tuesday remanded to 8 days’ CBI custody by the city Bankshall Court. Ghosh’s lawyer did not apply for bail.