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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