West Bengal: Rape survivors move Supreme Court against TMC workers

A minor girl and a 60-year-old woman have approached the court

A minor girl and 60-year-old woman have approached the Supreme Court alleging gang rape 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 alleged inaction of police.

The 17-year-old girl from the Scheduled Caste community allegedly gang-raped on May 9 by members/supporters of the ruling party 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 alleged 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 ran amuck 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.

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.