Cops harass Malda victim
In a clear encore of the infamous Park Street rape case and similar incidents thereafter, the Trinamool Congress Government once again stood by the accused in the attempted rape and murder case in Malda imposing hardships on the victim and her family by getting the police to perpetrate all kinds of torture on her, it was alleged.
The victim, a poor widow, who refused to withdraw the case of attempted rape against accused Rintu Sheikh of Pokharia village in Malda was threatened by the police to withdraw the case. To make matters worse two State Ministers contradicted her claims of sexual attack saying "whatever happened was with her consent."
The victim's refusal to withdraw the case against Sheikh led to the latter gouging out an eye of her father who has since been fighting for his life in a hospital. Earlier also, the victim's father was attacked by Sheikh when he tried to stop the accused from sexually assaulting his daughter.
Incidentally, in the Park Street case also, Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar had said that it was "not a case of rape but one of a misunderstanding between a woman and her client before retracing her words."
The Malda victim was allegedly made to sit in the police station for the whole of Tuesday night, in contravention of laws regarding the same, without even being allowed to use the toilet or drink water allegedly as a psychological pressure to force her into withdrawing the case against the accused.
While the local MlA and State Minister KN Chowdhury insisted that the woman "had been in an illicit relationship with the accused and it is not a case of rape" his party and Cabinet colleague Dr Shashi Panja the Family Welfare Minister said there were discrepancies between the official complaint and what she was telling the media.
Apart from the prime accused even the police played a deplorable role by not registering the FIR initially and arranging a kangaroo court where the local police officer in-charge got the accused to do sit-ups, apologise, cough up Rs11,000 and leave in spite of repeated pleas of the victim to arrest him, sources said.
"The consequence was that doubly emboldened by the police move he attacked the victim's father and gouged out his eye with a rod" women's right activist Bolan Ganguly said alleging the civil society was taking up the case.
Meanwhile the incident kicked up a storm in the State with political parties threatening to launch a bigger movement if nothing was done soon. "It is strange that instead of standing by the victims, this Trinamool Government has made it a habit of backing the rapists" PCC president Adhir Chowdhury said while BJP leader BJP leader Tathagata Roy wondered "whether the Trinamool will now say that the victim's father was attacked after getting his consent."