In Bengal rape-murder stir, intellectuals take lead

West Bengal's intelligentsia today upped the ante against the Mamata Banerjee's government by holding a protest march through the city against the rising crime against women in the state.

Spearheaded by poet Sankha Ghosh, the silent walk from the College Square to Metro Channel -- a few hundred metres from the state secretariat Writers' Building -- was joined by a few thousand people. The participants included the likes of economist and the state's former finance minister Ashok Mitra, theatre personality Rudraprasad Sengupta, writer Samaresh Majumdar, actor Soumitra Chatterjee, and painter Samir Aich. Film director Mrinal Sen was also supposed to join the procession, but he could not make it due to ill health. He, however, lent his support through a letter.

They were joined by a group of people from Kamduni village in Barasat, where a 20-year-old college student was gang-raped and brutally murdered earlier this month. Earlier this week, on her visit to Kamduni, Chief Minister Banerjee had faced some unpalatable questions from the women in the village, whom Banerjee called 'Maoists'.

It was not the first time, however, that Banerjee had labelled any protestor 'Maoist'. From college students to poor farmers, many who earned the ire of the CM have been labelled Maoists.

While it was Kamduni that triggered today's walk, crime against women in West Bengal has been growing at an alarming rate.

Yesterday, a section of the intelligentsia including film director Aparna Sen, theatre personality Bibhas Chakraborty, educationist Sunanda Sanyal, among others, had organised a meeting to protest against the ineffective state administration that failed to curb violence against women. At the meeting, Sen said that Banerjee was no longer the person they voted for.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, Bengal has topped the charts in crime against women in 2012, accounting for more than 12 per cent of the total number of crime committed against women in the country.

Many who took to the streets today had protested against the police firing in Nandigram that killed 14 people. The last time Ghosh walked in protest against the state government was on November 14, 2007, when the state was ruled by the Left Front.

Although it was a silent walk from the College Square to the Metro Channel -- a distance of about 3 kms -- its impact is resonating through the state, more importantly, Writers' Building.