Brinda Karat takes WB Govt. to task over Jalpaiguri incident

CPI (M) politburo member Brinda Karat today criticized the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) Government in West Bengal for promoting what she called "jungle raj", after a teenage girl was allegedly raped and murdered in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri.

Taking on the state government over the incident, Karat stated that the TMC people were involved in the incident and the police was also trying to protect them.

Karat told ANI, "The TMC is totally responsible, the TMC people are completely involved in it and the police is also trying to save them."

Terming the incident as the limit of barbarism, Karat said, "The girl and her family were forcibly called by the TMC councillor to his village to solve a dispute. There, the girl's family was asked to pay money. When they refused, the girl's father was beaten up and when the girl tried to stop them from beating her father's family, she was also taken away."

"In the end, the girl's naked body was found some distance away," said Karat, adding that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was protecting the criminals.

The naked dead body of a teenage girl was found on the railway tracks in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district on Tuesday morning. The girl had apparently protested against the village kangaroo-court's decision that her father should be punished for not paying for a power tiller that he had rented.

The girl's uncle trashed reports about her committing suicide claiming that his niece was raped and killed. He also indirectly held members of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) responsible for the incident and added that a TMC leader Gobinda Bhowmick had threatened his niece.

"My brother-in-law was beaten up and my niece protested. They threatened her. If she committed suicide, why was she without clothes? I think they raped and then killed her and left her near the tracks," said Moael Roy, the deceased girl's uncle.

"When she tried to stop the villagers from thrashing her father, the 'court' allegedly turned on her. She vanished from the kangaroo court after the incident and nobody could trace her, later her body was found near the tracks," he added.