January 11, 2014
MADHYAMGRAM RAPE-MURDER CASE: Protestors Hold CM Guilty of Callousness
NEW DELHI: ON January 2, several hundred people from women’s
organisations, trade union organisations and student organisations demonstrated
outside the Banga Bhawan in New Delhi, in order to protest against the callous
and criminal attitude of the West Bengal government towards victims of sexual
assault and specifically the manner in which the case of the recent 16-year old
gang-rape victim was dealt with, resulting in her tragic death due to burn
injuries on December 31, 2013. That the government of the Trinamul Congress
(TMC), headed by a woman, makes a mockery of a crime such as rape speaks
volumes about how they seek to politicise each issue in order to brush aside
all opposition to their rule in an autocratic manner.
Speaker after speaker denounced the incident and demanded speedy trial
in this case and steps to curb violence against women inBengal which was
relatively a safer place for women before the advent of TMC rule in 2011.
Brinda Karat, patron of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, said that
this was not only about violence but about the attitude of TMC government
towards women and violence. CITU general secretary Tapan Sen denounced the
criminalisation of politics by TMC. Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary of the
AIDWA, said that the people of Bengal would no longer tolerate the
nexus between TMC and criminals. Jagmati also said that AIDWA would observe
January 3 as ‘Akrosh Diwas’ across the country.
The speakers put forward the following demands:
1) Impartial inquiry into the case,
2) Speedy and time-bound trial in the case,
3) Punishment to the policemen who were hand-in-glove with the
criminals, and
4) Safety and support to the victim’s family.
The participating organisations included, among others, the AIDWA, CITU,
SFI, NFIW and Swastika Mahila Samiti.
Next day, on Akrosh Diwas on January 3, these organisations and sent an
open letter to the West Bengal chief minister through the resident commissioner
in Delhi. The text of the Open Letter follows.
CHIEF MINISTER’S RESPONSIBILITY
We the undersigned express our deep outrage and shock at the horrendous
double gang rape and murder of the 16 years old student in Madhyamgram, in
North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, and the subsequent events following her
death due to burns she sustained. We are extremely disturbed that as chief
minister you have not only maintained a deafening silence on the case but as
home minister, the police directly under your control have acted in a manner
which not only further victimised the rape victim and her family but eventually
led to her murder.
We strongly believe that if your government had acted against the
criminals after she was subjected to gang rape on October 24 the subsequent
horrific events could have been prevented and the young woman’s life could have
been saved.
The father of the girl in this case is a taxi driver
from Bihar who had brought his family to Kolkata a few months back
precisely because they had thought that the daughter would get better education
in Kolkata. She was gang raped the first time on October 24, 2013, by a group
of miscreants, some of whom are known to be close to the ruling party in the
state. After she came home having lodged a complaint at the local thana,
she was abducted and raped once again by the same culprits as punishment for
having dared to voice her complaint.
But even then the police did not act. When leaders of women’s
organisations and other concerned citizens raised their voices in protest and
went to meet the victim, they were driven out by armed hooligans who were
surrounding the house.
Madam, how do such criminals have the run of the place where they have
the audacity to repeat their horrendous crime and then attack protesters? Is it
because they have the political patronage of the ruling party?
Pressurised by public outrage, the police then arrested six of the
accused persons and arranged for vigilance at the girl’s residence to protect
her and her family. But very soon, this protection was withdrawn and the family
fled from Madhyamgram to a rented room near Dumdum Airport to
escape the constant threats they were facing.
Why was the police protection withdrawn? On whose orders? Why did the
police not take action against those making threats?
On December 23, some associates of the culprits discovered even this
meagre shelter and, according to the statement of the victim to the police,
stormed into the room in the absence of the parents, abused and threatened the
girl and set fire on her causing 90 percent burns. It is shocking that
initially the police tried to cover up the case by saying that it was the
outcome of a quarrel between landlord and tenant. Later two persons named in
the FIR were eventually arrested and remanded to jail custody. The girl was
taken to R G Kar Hospital where there is no burn unit and in spite of
agitations by organisations to shift her to the burn unit
at SSKM Hospital, the superintendent refused; she was only shifted to
the ICU later. After fighting for her life for eight days, the girl died on
January 31, without receiving even a single gesture of sympathy or concern from
the government.
As you are directly holding the health ministry, could not you or on
your direction any senior government official have intervened to ensure that
the victim was not denied the specialised medical care she required? This could
have saved her life.
It is outrageous and unprecedented that after her death, the police who
had refused to provide security to the girl while she was living, suddenly
became pro-active after her death forcibly took her body, without the consent
of her parents, to the cremation ground and tried to cremate her by putting
pressure on her father to produce the death certificate. The father however
refused and on the morning of January 1, 2014, they had to hand over the body
to the family who were then able to perform the last rites. Such brutal
behaviour on the part of the police and the administration raises doubts as to
whether the family of the victim would be able to get justice at all.
Under whose instructions did the police act in this barbarous way?
A year ago, the country was convulsed with anger and outrage after the
brutal gang rape in Delhi and death of the brave young woman. The
country pledged to make India safe for women, to reform the law and
judicial processes, to ensure swift justice and punishment to the criminals and
to also hold governments and officials accountable for any connivance in
subverting the law.
Regretfully, we find that in West Bengal the official approach
of your government to almost all the cases of sexual assault which include many
of your own statements berating the victims, have brought despair to victims of
sexual assault and those seeking justice. We therefore call upon you to take
immediate steps to restore the rule of law against criminals by the following
steps:
We demand that the West Bengal government hand over the
investigation into the case to an impartial agency which should be court
monitored.
All the culprits be arrested without delay and brought to justice
speedily.
The police personnel responsible for removing the protection cover as
well as those who tried to forcible takeover the girl’s body should be
proceeded against without delay.
Immediate enquiry must be made into the charges of negligence against
the hospital and the department of health, so that those who are guilty in this
matter may be exposed.
Protection must be provided for the family of the girl.
The letter was signed by many prominent persons such as Professor C P
Chandrasekhar, Professor Jayati Ghosh, Professor Archana Prasad, Professor
Pravin Jha of JNU, renowned historian Professor Prem Chaudhury, DUTA president
Nandita Narain, DU executive committee member Abha Dev Habib, Professor Sonya
Gupta and Professor Simmi Malhotra (Jamia Millia Islamia), Professor Dinesh
Abrol (CSSP), A N Damodaran (president, Jan Sanskriti), Professor Vandana
Prasad (PHRN), AIDWA president Professor Malini Bhattacharya, Aruna Roy
(NFIW), Jyotsna Chatterjee (JWP), Jai Bhagwan, (AICCMDMW), Rajiv Kunwar
(secretary, Democratic Teachers Front, DU), Ranjana Nirula and A R Sindhu
(AICCWW), Amitav Guha (FMRAI), Dr Nalini Taneja and Professor Amar Farooqui
(DU), Leila Passah (YWCA), Kamla Bhasin (One Billion Rising), Kusum Sehgal
(Swastika Mahila Samiti), Annie Raja (NFIW), N S Goswami (retired professor,
DU), Sunand Singh (CEC of SFI), Puran Chand (general secretary, DYFI Delhi
state unit), Smita Gupta of ISWSD, Dr Arathi (Council for Social Development)
and renowned economist Professor Utsa Patnaik, among others.
DELEGATION MEETS NCW
ON
January 7, a joint delegation of women’s organisations along with the family
members of the 16 years old girl who was gang raped and murdered in
Madhyamgram, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, met the chairperson of National
Commission for Women (NCW) in the national capital, New Delhi.
A
statement of the family members was registered with the commission and the
chairperson responded to the compliant positively. She assured immediate intervention
in the matter for the following:
a) Provide
support to the family and take steps for relief and rehabilitation both short
and long term.
b) Stiff
action against all perpetrators would be sought.
c) A
delegation of the NCW would visit West Bengal along with women’s
organisations to take cognisance of the situation there.
d) The
NCW will do all that’s possible within its powers to ensure that justice is
done.
Protest Actions Continue
BIHAR: The heart wrenching incident of twice raped girl, who
was later on burnt to death on December 31, 2013 in Madhyamgram area near
Kolkata, evoked spontaneous protest all across Bihar, cutting across
political affiliations. The ghastly incident which consumed the life of a 16
years old girl from Bihar and the behaviour of the police and the West Bengal
government has invited all round condemnation, and people from all walks of
life joined together to raise their voice in support of the family member of the
victim who are going from pillar to post to get justice for their loving
daughter.
The CPI(M) took the lead in Bihar and brought out a protest
demonstration in Patna on January 2. Member of the CITU, AIDWA,
democratic cultural organisations and common people participated in the protest
march and demanded full security to the victim’s family member who are being
threatened by TMC goons of the area, aided and abetted by the police at the
instance of the political bosses, under the overall guidance of Ms Mamata
Banerjee.
The protestors also demanded exemplary punishment for the culprits and
the guilty policemen, and full financial and emotional rehabilitation of the
victim’s parents.
The CPI(M) also gave a call to organise protest all
over Bihar on January 3. Till the filing of this report, protests had
been organised in 21 districts of Bihar. Reports from the rest of the
districts are awaited.
Samastipur, from where the girl hails, witnessed widespread protest
organised by the CPI(M), mass organisations and common people. Effigies of Ms
Mamata Banerjee were burnt at several places --- right from the district
headquarter to the remotest corner of Samastipur. A train coming from West
Bengal was stopped for hours together. Even villages in the remote areas
of Samastipur erupted with anguish and sense of revulsion against the West
Bengal government. Their anger knew no bounds as they heard about the
inhuman treatment meted out to the grieving father of the victim who was
ordered by the SP himself to leave Bengal and threatened by the TMC
goons to be killed.
In Darbhanga district, effigies of Ms Banerjee were burnt at eight
places. Thousands of people participated
Besides the Left parties, JD(U), RJD, LJP and other political formations
also condemned this ghastly incident and demanded stringent punishment for the
culprits and the policemen.
Pleaders and advocates of Patna High Court brought out a protest march
and demanded justice to the victim’s family.
The AIPWA, AAP, civil society organisations, AISF and AISA also brought
out protest and candle marches, and condemned the West Bengal government for
its total failure in providing safety to the traumatised girl who was twice
raped before she was burnt to death with the connivance of the local police and
the TMC bosses. (Arun Kumar Mishra)
JHARKHAND: Protesting against the gruesome gang rape and murder
of a teenager in Kolkata, members of the Ranchi unit of AIDWA
organised a protest march on January 5, at Albert Ekka Chowk, the main
thoroughfare in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand.
The protestors said this heinous incident is a landmark of the present
situation prevailing in West Bengal under the misrule of Miss Mamata
Banerjee, where hundreds of leaders and activists of the opposition parties have
been murdered. A big rise in the number of atrocities against women and
curtailment of democratic rights are the rule of the day.
The procession started from the Daily Market and walked through the main
thoroughfares before it assembled at Albert Ekka Chowk.
The members of the AIDWA raised slogans against the misrule of the TMC
government, for its gross failure in ensuring safety and protection of women,
and suppression of the democratic rights of the people.
The AIDWA members also expressed deep concern over the increasing
incidents of rape in Ranchi and other parts of the state. They
demanded immediate action against the culprits. The procession was led by Bina
Linda, Renu Prakash, Gouri Susarla, Basanti Oraon, Josphin Gudia, Madhurvani,
Rajni Kispotta, Pushpa Kujur, Jaimani Nayak, Lakshmi Nayak, Ashomani Devi, Jira
Devi, Lakhia Oraon and others.
More protest programmes are being organised in different districts of
the state, including Sindri, Jharia, Dhanbad, Gomo in Dhanbad district by the
AIDWA, DYFI, SFI and CITU. Life insurance employees organized a candle march at
Dhanbad district headquarters. At Jamshedpur, the AIDWA organised street
corner meetings at different points in the city. At Bokaro steel city,
processions and street corner meetings were organised by the CITU.
Different units of the CPI(M) are also organising protest programmes in
various districts.
TRANSPORT WORKERS: The All India Road Transport Workers Federation
(AIRTWF) has strongly condemned the action of the West Bengal state
government, and is organising protest actions against the atrocious and
unprecedented incident.
One recalls that when the police tried to forcibly cremate the body of
the girl victim in order to wipe out the evidence, it was the working president
of the AIRTWF, Shyamal Chakraborty, who is also the CITU state president in West
Bengal, who intervened to prevent the police from its misdemeanour and also led
a strong protest rally with the victim’s body.
Madhyamgram Rape-Murder Victim’s Family Meets President, Demands Justice
On January 7, 2014, the father and other family members of Swapna Kumari
Jha, the girl who was recently burnt to death after having been subjected to
gang rape twice in West Bengal, met the president
of India at New Delhi to press the demand that justice be
done to the deceased. Led by Sitaram Yechury, leader of the CPI(M) group in
Rajya Sabha, a CP(M) delegation accompanied the family. Former Rajya Sabha
member Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha member Shyamal Chakraborty, AIDWA general
secretary Jagmati Sangwan and SFI joint secretary Shatrup Ghosh were other
members of the delegation.
On this occasion the victim girl’s father presented to the president a
petition in Hindi, a free translation of which follows.
“THIS is to state that I, Ramashankar Jha, along with my wife Anita Jha
and late daughter Swapna Kumari Jha, came from village Bande, PS Patauri,
district Samastipur, Bihar, to Patuli Shivtala, Madhyamgram in Kolkata for a
job and began working here as a taxi driver. My father was in government
service in Kolkata and drove a government taxi in
the Writers Building. He retired from service in 1980. During that
period, I was born in this very state.
Sir, I brought my daughter from Bihar to Bengal in order to
provide her higher education, as there is provision of education up to Class VI
only in our village, Bande.
Sir, with a deep sense of grief I have to tell you that my daughter,
Swapna Kumari Jha, was subjected to rape on 25/10/2013. As I said, I am a taxi
driver and was out with my taxi in the night when this incident took place. I
came home in the morning on 26/10/2013 and then my wife told me that there was
no information about our daughter’s whereabouts. I then approached the
Madhyamgram police station about it. When I came home back, I saw my daughter
had been brought home by some villagers and she told me, with tears in her
eyes, that six persons had subjected her to gang rape. Sir, then I went to the
police station and filed another report about the rape case. The station in
charge then kept my wife and daughter in the police station itself whole day
and whole night on 26/10/2013 and allowed me to take them home only at 9.15 p m
on 27/10/2013, but without any police protection.
Sir, it was when my daughter was returning home in the evening that some
people forcibly took her to a lonely place, raped her and then threw her at the
railway track. When the GRP people saw her on the railway track, they brought
her to my residence in Patuli Shivtala at about 12 in the night.
After about a month of this incident, I changed my residence in order to
save our lives and came to Adhai Number Gate, Motilal Colony, Airport, from
Patuli Shivtala in Madhyamgram, on 19/11/2013.
However, our past did not spare us here either and Minta Shil of village
Patuli Shivtala, Madhyamgram, and Ratan Shil, the eldest son of our earlier
landlady, burnt my daughter alive on 23/12/2013 in our absence.
Sir, our misfortune did not end here either. When my wife took my
daughter in a burnt state to R G Kar Hospital, the victim was made to lie on a
polythene sheet on the floor in the hospital.
As I had gone to Krishnanagar with a passenger, I could reach the
hospital only at 12 in the night, after I was informed that my daughter had
been taken to the R G Kar Hospital, in a burnt state.
When I saw my daughter lying on a polythene sheet, I told the doctor
that this could cause infection to my daughter, but he told me that the
hospital had no burn speciality though they would try to provide her the best
possible treatment.
When I knew that the facilities for burn treatment were lacking in that
hospital, I contacted the chief of the SSKM (PG) Hospital for my daughter’s
treatment, but he told me that they had no vacant bed at the time but that they
would admit my daughter whenever there was a bed. I maintained contact with
him, and on 26/12/2013 he finally told that bed number 5 had been vacated in
the hospital, that it would be kept reserved for my daughter, but that they
would admit my daughter only on the condition that the R G Kar must refer and
transfer the case to them.
However, when I told the doctor in R G Kar that I wanted to take my
daughter to SSKM (as there are burn specialists there, and as both are
government hospitals), he did not agree to refer the case to SSKM, saying that
I could take the patient there at my own responsibility and after signing a
bond.
Sir, as the SSKM was prepared to admit my child only after a referral
but as the R G Kar was not prepared to give it, this legal wrangle between the
two deprived me of an opportunity to get my child treated by a burn specialist,
and the result was that my daughter died at about 1.40 p m on 31/12/2013.
Sir, after my daughter’s demise, I wanted to keep her body in a Peace
Heaven (cold storage), as all the members of my family were to come from Bihar,
and I wanted to do the last rites on 01/01/2014, only after their arrival. But
when the body was being taken to the Peace Heaven, it was found that it was
instead being forcibly taken to Nimtalla Ghat. When my brother, Satya Narayan
Jha, saw that the situation was getting serious, when he saw the gundagardi of
the police force and realised that these people were in no mood to listen to
his pleas and were out to take the body to Nimtalla Ghat, he thought it prudent
to jump down the vehicle and run away.
Then the same people finally took the body to Nimtalla Ghat and began to
force my family to hand them over the death certificate. At my house, when I
repeatedly pleaded that my daughter’s last rites would be performed only after
all family members had arrived fromBihar, they began to issue threats from the night
of 01/01/2014; in fact from 10 p m itself they began using force in an attempt
was to get the cremation done at the earliest. The whole police force too began
to threaten us, and it was in their presence that a person came there and
threatened that he would get all of us killed in our own house. When I drew the
policemen’s attention to how that fellow was threatening us, the policemen
showed no intention to do something about it. On the contrary, they too
threatened us that we should all leave for Bihar before 12 the same
night. When I did not pay any heed to the threat, they began attempts to break
our gate, saying that they would break the gate open and force us to come to
Nimtalla Ghat along with the death certificate.
When I repeatedly pleaded that my daughter’s body must be brought back
from Nimtala to my house, they threatened that they would get the cremation
done in the same night, no matter whether we came there or not.
Sir, I again and again repeated my plea and they continued the chain of
their threats. They told me that they would not allow me to run a taxi in the
Airport area and that it would be better if we did the cremation at the
earliest and then left for Bihar.
The whole episode and the threats kept my whole family frightened for the
whole night, and I kept praying that God must protect us from these demons as
the protectors have themselves become the sources of
danger.
Finally, when the police officers saw that all their game had failed,
they brought my daughter’s body to my house in Airport area and began to press
us that we must immediately take it to the burning ghat and do the cremation at
the earliest.
As our whole family was terror-struck, I pleaded that we would come out
only in the morning; we were afraid of the police goons and did not want to
come out in the night.
Sir, following my daughter’s death on 31/12/2013, I had sent a letter in
the afternoon requesting for a forensic test, but no forensic test has been
done even after 12 days have passed since she was put on fire.
Therefore I request Your Esteemed Self that the whole episode must be
probed by the CBI, and due legal actions must be taken against all the
culprits, the guilty police officials, guilty hospital authorities and guilty
administrative officials at the earliest. I also request that Your Esteemed
Self must ensure the safety of our lives and property.”
New protests after suicide of 16-year-old gang-raped twice in Calcutta
Gangsters
who twice raped a 16-year-old girl and threatened to kill her father unless she
dropped the charges had ’political patronage,’ says veteran women’s rights
campaigner
The mother of the rape
victim cries as she places flowers on the coffin in Calcutta Photo: EPA/PIYAL
ADHIKARY
By Dean Nelson, New Delhi
THE TELEGRAP, 2:22PM GMT 01 Jan 2014
There were angry demonstrations in Calcutta on Wednesday
following the death of a 16-year-old girl who set herself on fire after
suffering two gang-rapes and a campaign of intimidation to force her to drop
charges against her assailants.
One of India’s leading women’s rights campaigners, Brinda Karat,
a veteran former member of parliament and Communist Party leader, said the
local government and police had shielded the alleged perpetrators who were
linked to West Bengal’s ruling party, the Trinamool Congress.
Ms Karat had never heard of a victim being gang-raped twice and
said the case showed little had been done to protect sexual assault victims
since the gang rape and murder of a Delhi student provoked outrage throughout
India one year ago.
The anger of the victim’s family and women’s rights campaigners
was compounded when local police officers tried to cremate her body earlier on
Wednesday without the family’s permission.
The victim had died from multiple organ failure on New Year’s
Eve, eight days after she was found on fire. Doctors said she had suffered
burns to 40 per cent of her body, with more severe damage to her face and
throat which left her with severe breathing problems.
The girl was first attacked in October in Madhyamgram, near
Calcutta, by six men who gang-raped her again the following day as she returned
from reporting the assault at a police station with her father.
The men were arrested for the rapes but the victim and her
family continued to receive threats from their associates, including a final
warning that her father, a taxi driver, would be killed if she did not withdraw
the complaint.
The family’s landlord, who is believed to be related to one of
the accused, ordered the family to vacate their one room home. On the morning
of the suicide attempt two associates of the accused arrived at their home and
threatened and verbally abused the victim.
Campaigner Brinda Karat said the two gang rapes, the persecution
of the victim and her subsequent suicide reflected the “criminalisation of
politics” in West Bengal where party leaders rely on gangsters to deliver
votes.
“This gang raped her twice, she went to the police, and they had
the temerity to go to her house and threaten her. Clearly they have political
patronage, otherwise it is impossible for that to happen. In all my experience
I have never seen a case where a girl has been gang-raped twice.
“What is so tragic is that her life could have been saved if the
government and ordinary processes of law had worked — they would not have
delayed bringing justice and protection for the victim,” she said.
Ms Karat, who had been a leading campaigner for tougher laws and
fast-track trials in rape cases, said she was saddened that the new year had
begun - like 2013 - with the death of a young woman following a gang-rape.
“It’s a year since this terrible case in Delhi outraged the
country and forced the government to make public commitments about
preventative, protective and legal measures to punish [perpetrators] when these
cases occur. But this case shows there is protection for the criminals. Her
life could have been saved,” she said.
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