Is there an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu among West Bengal’s residents? Or a conscience-salving amnesia? Do they recall that in 2013 another young college student was gang-raped, mutilated and murdered in the “sweetest state”, as a tourism catchline deceitfully asserts? She was given the sobriquet Aparajita and her murder caused widespread outrage. The chief minister was heckled as she arrived in Kamduni a whole ten days after the girl’s body was discovered.
Even back then, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had already weathered a similar storm the year before (2012) when a woman was raped in the middle of Kolkata, on Park Street. She had then initiated what has now become a standard operating procedure (SOP)—doubt the crime itself, shame the victim/survivor, and loudly allege a political conspiracy and social media vendetta. So Kamduni became the second instance of what was to become a distressingly familiar pattern.
The CM questioned Aparajita’s morals, hinted at a conspiracy, accused the CPM of instigating the villagers etc. When she finally visited Kamduni, she said her government would get the death penalty for the perpetrator(s) within a month. Who was overall in charge of the probe? Special IGP CID Vineet Goel. Familiar? What did he say after his team investigated the rape murder? That “evidence showed it was the deed of one man, not gang-rape”. All this sound familiar?
The doughty women of Kamduni kept up the pressure and agitated for justice. A lower court deemed the men guilty and even handed out a death sentence to one. The High Court acquitted that man, and sentenced others to prison! And the Supreme Court is yet to weigh in on this, 11 years after the 21-year-old “Aparajita” was raped and murdered. Meanwhile several of the men have been released!
Just a week after the Kamduni case—that had shocked the middle class because the victim was a college student—came the gangrape and murder of a 12-year-old girl, whose body was found in a field in Ranitala and the rape and murder of a middle-aged woman in Kharjula, both villages in Murshidabad district. In the latter case, the police denied rape and insinuated a love affair gone awry after arresting one man, though villagers insisted she was targeted by a local gang.
Also in 2013, a 16-year-old girl was gang-raped twice (the second time for lodging a police complaint about the first rape) in Madhyamgram on Kolkata’s outskirts and set on fire by the same men two months later to prevent her from testifying. She was pregnant when she died due to burn injuries on 31 December 2013. It was alleged the police first tried to pass it off as self-immolation and the probe proceeded at a glacial pace till the parents appealed to the High Court.
What did Banerjee say? “What can we do if the family members move to a higher court or roam around going to different courts or to the President? When a court will give judgment, it’s not in my purview.” And when asked about the tardy pace compared to Mumbai, she snapped, “Some people are saying Bengal cannot do what Maharashtra can do. I want to say it is wrong. It’s a lie. I would have no problems if facts were reported, but what has been reported is misleading.”
So, in 2012, Park Street. 2013 Kamduni, Murshidabad and Madhyamgram. In 2014? A 15-year-old Scheduled Caste girl was raped and killed after she protested about the humiliation of her father by a ‘salishi sabha’ (Bengal’s version of a khap panchayat) presided over by ruling party councillors. The girl’s naked body was found near the railway tracks at Dhupguri in Jalpaiguri district. That same year a 20-year-old tribal girl was also raped in Birbhum. Their cases? Forgotten.
Then onto 2015. This time a 71-year-old nun was raped at a convent school in the porous border district of Nadia, at Ranaghat. And what did Banerjee say when angry residents confronted her about the tardy probe? “I know political elements are in this crowd. They are the ones who are doing this. Those who are protesting here…they don’t want the real culprits to be arrested.” A Bangladeshi was convicted in 2017 though the chargesheet had said “gang-rape”. Familiar?
Suffice it to say that by 2022, Banerjee gained plenty of experience on how to handle public opinion on such cases. Accuse. Deflect. Withdraw. Stymie. So when a 14-year-old was raped and murdered in Hanskhali, she said: “This story they are showing that a minor has died due to rape, will you call it rape? Was she pregnant or had a love affair? Have they enquired? I have asked the police. They have made arrests. I was told the girl had an affair with the boy.” Familiar?
And there was an avalanche of rapes in 2022. A 40-year-old woman was abducted and gang-raped by five men in Namkhana village in South 24 Parganas in April. They poured kerosene on her and tried to burn her alive. Also in April that year, a 15-year-old tribal girl was gang-raped in Shantiniketan, while returning from a fair with her boyfriend. Shockingly, again in April 2022, a 21-year-old college student was raped and murdered in Pingla area of Paschim Medinipur district.
Deganga, Bansdroni, Englishbazar, a long list of places and rape or rape-murder cases in West Bengal from 2022 onwards. So by the time the accounts of rape and intimidation of women in Sandeshkhali by men with links to the ruling party came to light in 2024, the CM could brazenly assert, “This (violence) is not new. There is a branch of RSS in Sandeshkhali. Bringing outsiders is causing unrest. We are taking action; the police are going door to door to provide assistance.”
Do these cases, these excuses, even the actions and responses sound similar to what the CM, the police commissioner and apologists for the state authorities have been saying about the rape and murder of the doctor at RG Kar in Kolkata, and the vandalism that followed the news of the case being handed over to the CBI? How many people in Kolkata, the rest of West Bengal, and those watching the events on TV from outside realise there is a pattern in this madness?
How many people will now realise what is the real state of Bengal? How many will forget even this latest outrage? After all, many won’t recall the cases cited here, even though they made news in their time. So, 11 years after Aparajita’s rape-murder at Kamduni, the ruling party and CM remain aparajit (undefeated) in their third term. And a rape-murder has happened again—at RG Kar in Kolkata. What does this say about the ‘exceptionalism’ that Bengal prides itself on?
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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