Women of Karanchapali village, located within 4 km from Santipur, Nadia district, West Bengal, came down on the road with sticks and brooms in their hands in protest against Trinamool Congress (TMC) goons like Pradip Sarkar, who are allegedly molesting them systematically with apparent protection of the local police. Women have elaborately said in front of the media how the lustful beasts, for the last 4-5 years, are knocking on their doors deep at night, peeping into their houses through windows, taking photos of the ladies when they are in leisurely poses and blackmailing them later to molest them instead of that. The goons are empowered by the local police as the police never accept any complaints from the ladies; rather, they slap cases against those who went to register complaints, said the ladies of Kaanapali. The lady-targeting perpetrators allegedly boasted of their high connection in the police and judiciary, thus demoralising the victims. Finally, the ladies came down on the street the day before yesterday and were covered by the Calcutta News channel.
The Karanchapali incident reminds us of the same mechanism regularly applied in several border areas of West Bengal. While the most recent example is Sandeshkhali, other border areas of North 24 Parganas faced this mechanism much earlier. We all remember Barun Biswas of Sutia village of Gaighata Panchayat Samiti area, who built up a force that started resisting the rape army that started operating in the Barasat, Haroa, Gaighata and such other border areas of North 24 Parganas from the end of 1990’s decade. Tentatively, since 1996, a group of people started targeting ladies of the places rampant. They entered their houses at night & tried to drag them away; they molested & raped them. It appeared to be a contrived mechanism of targeted sexual assault of women of a particular community. The sole objective appeared to be a land grab by indirectly forcing those families to leave those places, eventually handing the area over to Bangladeshi infiltrators. Likewise, Sheikh Shahjahan of Sandeshkhali also had the lands of Janjatiya Hindus of Sandeshkhali & gave those lands to others instead of a hefty sum of
Please note that the near-border assemblies of North 24 Parganas have been inclined to TMC ever since the party’s inception in 1998. Jyotipriyo Mallick became a prominent TMC leader in that part of the district from the very beginning. As a result, Mallick won the Gaighata Assembly Constituency in the 2001 and 2006 Assembly Elections, while from 2011 to 2021, Jyotipriyo Mallick became the MLA from Habra. This implies that the infiltration industry was running along the North 24 Parganas border under the influence of both TMC and the then Left Front Government under the leadership of Jyoti Basu till the year 2000 & Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee after that till 2011. The rape army allegedly consisted of people from the ruling party CPM & the police remained generally inactive in cases of complaints against such CPM Harmads. However, during the CPM regime, the police didn’t refuse to register complaints, unlike the present regime, which didn’t even register complaints but slapped false cases upon the complainants themselves as per allegations.
In this way came a marked change in the religious demography of those border areas from before 1996 till today, with the huge rise in the percentage of minority people in North 24 Parganas district. So, the sexual assault mechanism seemed to be a planned pattern. Barun Biswas was murdered in 2012 after TMC came to power in 2011. This implied the infiltration industry was so complicit with TMC in Jyotipriyo Mallick’s area that immediately after TMC came to office, Barun Biswas was targeted and murdered. The role of Jyotipriyo Mallick in land grabs in those areas needs to be probed. How much land of North 24 Parganas did he hand over to people from across the border?
In Karanchapali Village of Nadia, Officer in charge (OC) of Santipur PS Subrata Malakar didn’t accept complaints against the alleged perpetrator Pradip Sarkar, rather slapped false cases against the villagers themselves as described by Jagannath Sarkar, BJP MP from Ranaghat. OC Santipur PS Subrata Malakar appeared so directly associated with the ruling party TMC that he once reportedly forwarded TMC’s political message in a WhatsApp group. According to Anandabazar Patrika, the OC forwarded a video message of TMC’s District President of Ranaghat Organisational District in a WhatsApp group, creating a huge controversy. Super of Ranaghat Police District K Kannan, however, indirectly and subtly defended OC Subrata Malakar in front of the media. There are other incidents, too, that imply the police of Karanchapali are in an integral nexus with the ruling party. Moreover, Pradip Sarkar seems to be just a flunkey of some bigshot. It is required to find out who that bigshot is.
Why are the women of Karanchapali being sexually targeted? Antecedents suggest that women become targets when perpetrators look for nothing but a land grab. Chennai becomes targeted for grabbing the MATI. After capturing North 24 Parganas, infiltrators made their presence felt in various parts of Nadia, too. Moving northward from Santipur proper, more minority people became visible. It is not impossible that Karanchapali village is being targeted for capture because of its convenient location concerning Santipur and National Highway 12. Karanchapali is less than 2 kilometres from NH 12, and many infiltrators are on the eastern side of NH 12. Karanchapali is situated on a location of connecting convenience on the western side of NH 12. Looking around Karanchapali, there are pockets of areas inhabited by minority people on the village’s Northern, Southern and Western sides. So, the chance of Karanchapali being targeted by infiltrators for land grabs can’t be ruled out and has to be probed. Women of the village have flagged their issue at a very important time.
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