Causing many eyebrows to raise National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma has written a letter to Bengal Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chowdhury requesting him to look into the matters relating to abuse of women as the State Government, the police administration and even Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee are “lethargic” in their “attitude” when it comes to handling crimes against women.
“You hail from Bengal and therefore are familiar with the problems of women in the State” Sharma wrote to Chowdhury requesting him to “intervene in the matter and give justice,” to women.
By writing to a political person and not any statutory authority against the Government’s alleged cavalier approach the NCW had jumped the ‘propriety gun’ experts however maintained.
The NCW’s severe censoring of the State Government comes weeks after she visited luvpur in Birbhum district where a tribal woman was reportedly gang-raped at the orders of a kangaroo court. Her fault: she had decided to marry a youth of other community.
“I would like to bring to your notice the rising crime of rape and atrocities on women in West Bengal. This shows the lethargic attitude of the State Government which is responsible for such crimes in the State,” Sharma wrote to Chowdhury who was currently in Delhi following an urgent call from Congress president Sonia Gandhi reviving once again “fear” among the State Congress men of yet another ‘imposed’ alliance with the Trinamool.
Apart from rebuking the police for “hushing up such matters” instead of taking strong action, Sharma also faulted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her lacklustre handling of the problem that had been hitting national headlines for quite some time now.
The lackadaisical approach of the Government was embedded in the Chief Minister’s dubbing the infamous Park Street rape case and the likes as cooked up incidents, PCC sources quoted the NCW chairperson as writing.
Banerjee had at that time blamed the rape as stage-managed affair choreographed by the Opposition that wanted to malign her government. “Even the police have failed to protect the rights of the women. Instead of filing FIR against the accused they try to hush up the matter resulting in women not getting justice at all,” she wrote in the letter which bore the date of February 13.