BJP Demands Mamata’s Resignation in Kolkata Law College Rape Case, Says Accused Has TMC Connections; Party Panel Will Travel to State
New Delhi: Senior BJP leaders on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government over the rape of a woman in a Kolkata law college, accusing the ruling party of failing to maintain law and order and protect women in the state.
The saffron party said Chief Minister Banerjee should apologise and offer to resign, alleging all the accused are linked to the ruling Trinamool Congress. “It is in a way state-sponsored brutality and a heinous crime motivated by politics,” BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said while reading out parts of the victim’s statement narrating the details of the crime and threats to her and her family made by the accused.
Slamming the Bengal government, Patra said BJP president J P Nadda has formed a four-member committee which will visit the state to investigate the matter and present its findings. Biplab Kumar Deb and Manan Kumar Mishra, both MPs, and Satyapal Singh and Meenakshi Lekhi, both former parliamentarians, are its members.
The Case
The 24-year-old woman was allegedly
within the college premises on the evening of June 25. The victim in her complaint said she was allegedly gangraped by at least three people in the guard room on the college premises. She said she had gone to the college to fill out a form for a test and was forced to stay back in the union room even after it was completed.
Police arrested the trio identified as students Zaib Ahmed and Pramit Mukhopadhyay and the key accused, Monojit Mishra (31), a college alumnus and a contractual non-teaching staff of the college, who also identified himself as a former leader of Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad. The TMC, however, has denied having any connection with the accused now and sought “severe punishment” if they are found guilty.
The woman alleged that the alumnus raped her after she turned down a marriage proposal from him, while two existing students stood guard and made a video recording of the act on their mobile phones. The torture, the victim alleged, started around 7.30 pm and went on till well past 10.30.
The three accused were produced before the Alipore court on Friday and have been remanded to police custody until 1 July. On Saturday, the police also arrested a security guard in the case.
‘Mamata Should Apologise And Resign’
BJP spokesperson Patra told reporters that the entire country was in sorrow and shock over the happenings in West Bengal while noting that several gruesome crimes against women have occurred there in recent times.
“People expected more sensitivity for women in a state with a woman chief minister, but there is so much insensitivity instead,” he said. “She should apologise and offer to resign,” Patra demanded.
“The main accused, Monojit Mishra, once held a position in the student union of the Trinamool Congress while other accused are also union members,” he said, rejecting the state’s ruling party’s claim of having no association with them. Patra said what happened in the guard room of the college was right out of a horror movie, having demons inflicting atrocities on women.
“These TMC goons behaved similarly with the victim, a 24-year-old and first-year student, who was allegedly assaulted for turning down the marriage proposal of the main accused.” Patra showed Mishra’s pictures with several TMC leaders to make the point about his association with the state’s ruling party.
The BJP spokesperson accused CM Banerjee, who also holds the home portfolio, of taking such gruesome crimes against women “lightly”.
TMC MP Kalyana Banerjee has stated that police cannot do much to prevent such crimes if a classmate rapes another student or if it happens inside a college, Patra said and alleging that the ruling party leaders have often made callous comments on similar incidents in past.
“What kind of mindset is that? It appears that the Mamata Banerjee government has no accountability,” the BJP leader said.
‘Brings Back Horrific Memories Of RG Kar’
The crime at the law college brought back the horrific memories of the rape and murder of an intern inside Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August last year which created a major political dust-up across the state.
Echoing the outrage, BJP leader Dilip Jaiswal demanded Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s resignation, citing a complete breakdown in governance.
“The earlier incident at the medical college in West Bengal was serious, and Mamata Banerjee’s government should have learned from it. However, her government has become uncontrollable, and the democratic system has collapsed. Remarks of Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress MP) on how to speak in such constitutional matters also deserve attention. Therefore, Mamata Banerjee’s government should resign immediately,” he said.
BJP MP Locket Chatterjee pointed out the alarming pattern.“A year ago, the RG Kar case took place. Today marks one year since that incident, and everyone believed that the RG Kar case would be taken seriously. So many people had come out onto the streets back then. Now, as that one-year mark is completed, yet another similar case has come to us. And this time, it happened right in Kolkata, inside a college campus, inside a medical college,” she said.
