In a “bizarre presentation” of statistics for the number of ageing “life convicts” being released from Bengal jails the Trinamool Congress Government on Monday disclosed their caste and religious identities apart from mentioning their age and sex leading the BJP to come down heavily on the ruling Trinamool Congress saying “this list of convicts being released is the greatest example of the kind of ‘secularism’ being practiced by the TMC Government.”
Speaking on the issue State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya on Monday said that “we have always known that the criminals have no caste, creed or political affiliation … they are only criminals … but here the TMC Government has prepared a list in which they have claimed that out of those being released 5 are SCs, 3 are STs, 2 are OBCs, 53 are General caste, 51 are Hindus and 12 are Muslims …”
He added, “by classifying the convicts according to their religion the TMC is only pursuing its divide-and-rule politics … based on communal and caste lines … Nowhere in India the convicts have been released by identifying them by their castes or religion … It is nothing but a way to show that ‘look in Bengal more number of Hindus are criminals than the Muslims… and when we will raise this issue they will call us names.”
The Mamata Banerjee government on Monday said that it had ordered the release of 63 life convicts from Bengal prisons so that the prisons could be decongested ahead of the third wave of the corona pandemic.
A senior official said that “there was a need to decongest the prisons because of the prevailing Covid-19 situation. Section 432 of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) empowers the state government to consider the premature release of life convicts who have already served 14 years in jail.”
The release of the convicts serving life sentence was recommended on humanitarian grounds by the state sentence review board. Accordingly 61 male convicts above 60 years and two female convicts aged above 55 years would be released before the Independence Day.
The Monday’s incident comes days after the Chairperson of the West Bengal Board of Higher Secondary Education while releasing the list of successful candidates in the Class XII Board exams mentioned the religion of the girl who stood first in the Board exams reminding on several occasions how a “Muslim girl … a girl from the minority community has topped the Board exams.”