Horror tales revealed by rape survivors; to move SC against TMC workers

Kolkata, June 14: It seems that brutal violence was not enough for TMC workers to spread terror across the state of West Bengal that they are has been cases of harassment taking place in Mamata Banerjee-led state. This comes as women in Bengal have come forward to narrate the horror tales of sexual assaults they were subjected to in the post-poll violence by the members of the ruling party.

 

 

A minor girl and a 60-year-old woman have approached the Supreme Court for assaults by West Bengal ruling party members after the declaration of Assembly poll results and sought a court-monitored SIT probe into all incidents of violence and the inaction of police.

 

 

The 17-year-old girl from the Scheduled Caste community was gang-raped on May 9 by TMC goons and sought transfer of investigation to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and shifting the trial out of West Bengal for her own and family's safety.

 

 

The girl has stated that not only was she gang-raped and left to die in the jungle after being dragged there by TMC supporters, the very next day a TMC local leader Bahadur SK came to her house and threatened the family members against lodging a complaint. She stated that he threatened to burn their house and kill them if they lodge a complaint.

 

 

The women cited the pro-active action taken by the Supreme Court in post-Godhra communal riots cases in Gujarat and sought a similar court-monitored SIT probe into incidents of gang rape and murders that went on with impunity for a fortnight in the state after TMC scored a massive victory in the assembly elections.

 

The senior citizen narrated that TMC workers unleashed terror after the declaration of Assembly poll results and barged into her house in a village in Purba Medinipur and gang-raped her in front of her six-year-old grandson prior to robbing her household of all valuables on the intervening night of May 4-5.

 

 

She was found unconscious the next day by her neighbours who took her to a hospital. When her son-in-law approached the police for an FIR, the police refused to do so. She said that the ruling party workers used rape as a weapon of revenge to humiliate and silence political rivals.

 

 

She said that never has such a crime been committed on a woman because her family participated in a democratic process. “Not merely the said crimes were facilitated by the inaction of the state authorities/police, but what was shocking is post crime humiliation that the rape survivors were subjected to, for their perceived audacity in reporting the crime,” she said.

 

The plea said, "While the history is replete with gruesome instances where rape was employed as a strategy to terrorise the enemy civilian population and to demoralise enemy troops, but never have such cruel crimes been committed against a woman citizen for her or her family's participation in the democratic process. Not merely the said crimes were facilitated by the inaction of the state authorities/police, but what was shocking is post-crime humiliation that the rape survivors were subjected to, for their perceived audacity in reporting the crime."

 

 

"The perversity of the investigation as is being carried out by the local police can be inferred from the fact that while the rape was committed by five accused who were all named by the rape survivor, and when the rape is confirmed by a medical report, the police has deliberately chosen to name only one of the five accused in the FIR," the woman alleged.