The latest gang rape on a tribal woman at Dhupguri town of Jalpaiguri Sadar exposes the heights of cruelty against women in Mamata’s Bengal
She is a housewife and belongs to Shanthal (Scheduled Tribe) community. She is a mother of three kids, the youngest one, a girl, is only of few months. For the last few days the little soul is surprised, why is mother not coming to feed her?
Dhupguri, a small township in the foothills of Bhutanese Himalayas, nearest district town, Jalpaiguri Sadar is about 35 km away, Jaldhaka River flows through the West of the town. Girandi, another small river, flows through the other side. Vijayadashami was on October 19. The river Ghat was crowded to immerse idols of Goddess Durga. The next day evening they dragged the Dalit lady from immersion Ghat to a distant isolated location and gang raped her. On October 21 morning, the mother was found unconscious, blooded on the bank of Girandi.
Atrocities against women, particularly Dalits and Tribals, have become a regular phenomenon in West Bengal for the last a few years and the culprits roam free enjoying the patronage of TMC leaders They gangraped the Dalit lady all the night and later rammed her genitals with a iron rod. Next day morning a rickshaw puller found her and brought her to Dhupguri Rural Health Centre. Since her condition was very serious, doctors advised the family to go to a super speciality hospital at Jalpaiguri. The Victim’s husband is a daily labourer. They could not afford any super speciality facilities. The lady was kept there untreated for more than two hours.
A local NGO took the initiative and arranged for the needful. They insisted Police to take proper action. After few hours the patient was transferred to Jalpaiguri Sadar hospital.
On October 21, afternoon, Moumita Sharma, doctor, Jalpaiguri Sadar hospital, informed that, the patient had huge bleeding. Major operation would be carried out after the patient gets stable. Blood transfusion was started immediately after admission. At the hospital premise, the husband of the victim was crying, ‘They have been threatening me for the last few months. We didn’t expect that they would torture my wife like wolves’.
Atrocities against Dalit have become a regular phenomenon in West Bengal. This year in the month of February a Scheduled Tribe girl was tortured in a similar manner at Kushmandi, South Dinajpur, North Bengal. The brutality on a 30 year old tribal woman, gang raped and left unconscious in the open for over twelve hours! There was an unrest among the tribal community of the locality due to repeated occurrence of such incidents against tribal women. On July 9, 2017 at Raigunj bus stand two minor tribal girls were molested and attempted to be raped by local hooligans. About 15,000 tribals took out a rally to protest against the molestation. In 2014, immediately before Durga puja a 10th class girl student was gang raped at Dhupguri of Jalpaiguri district. The girl was found unconscious under a bridge on next day morning.
Mou Rajak (17) a Dalit Hindu girl was attacked with acid bulb on October 10, 2016. She refused to accept the illegal proposal of Imran (48), a known fundamentalist of Ganzapara Village, P.S. Hnashkhali, District of Nadia. Mou died on October 19, 2016 at NRS Hospital, Kolkata.
In the month of October 2013, Rupali Mondal, a minor girl of Battali village had been raped by some local goons (Case no. 238(10) 2013, Goshaba P.S.). Due to some political reasons police was reluctant to arrest the criminals and take any legal step against them. Rupali Mondal was threatened by the criminals to withdraw her complaint. Local Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe community jointly moved for justice for rape victim. Due to their movement, K. Ramillu and Yogendra Pashwan, members of National Scheduled Caste Commission (NSCC) visited the house of Rupali Mondal on October 17, 2017. To punish the SC/ST activists local TMC goons attacked the house of Sanjay Shinha, local leader of Scheduled Caste community, immediately after the visit of NSCC members (Case no. 230/17, dated 17/10/17 Goshaba P.S). But no action has so far been taken by the police. The Dalit family has left its ancestral village and shifted to a safer place at Sonarpur, Kolkata.
The attitude of the state government has encouraged the criminals to commit such heinous crimes against women. A mother of two, had complained that she was raped at gunpoint on February 6, 2015 by Sharafat Ali and two others at Park Street, Kolkata. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee immediately declared that as “ a cooked-up case”. Mamata repeatedly called the victim a liar and accused her of trying to embarrass the government. Trinamool Congress MP Kakali Ghosh Dastidar opined that it was not a rape case, but ‘deal’ gone sour, “They (the Park Street case and Delhi gang rape) are totally different. The incident at Park Street was not a rape at all. It was a misunderstanding between two parties involved in professional dealing—a woman and her Client”. Finally, police investigation revealed that her complaint was fully correct. The victim died on March 13, 2015.
