Mukherjee assures justice to family of Kolkata rape victim

President Pranab Mukherjee has assured family members of a deceased Kolkata rape victim that justice would be delivered to them.

In a violent incident, the 20-year-old woman was allegedly abducted, gang-raped and murdered on June 7 in Barasat in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas District.

On June 18, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited the victim's family and urged the courts to severely punish the accused.

Family members of the rape victim met Mukherjee and discussed their grievances and complaints while asking for severe punishment for the culprits.

"We would like to thank the respected President as he patiently heard our grievances and assured us that our demands would be met and justice will be delivered," said one of the relatives of the rape victim.

The college student, the daughter of a mason, was on her way home from college after an examination on June 7, when she was apparently dragged into a walled compound by a group of men who raped her and then killed her. Six people have been arrested.

The Kolkata High Court has ordered the state government to submit an affidavit on the progress made in the case investigations.

"The honourable chief minister assured us that when the accused will be in custody, charge sheet would be given but unfortunately one month and ten days have passed and one charge sheet had been submitted in front of the honourable...(sic) court but the magistrate scolded them saying that it was a charge sheet where the accused should not be punished. On the next day the CID submitted a supplementary charge sheet," said Mukherjee.

The deceased girl's family had refused any kind of help from the state government and put forward a solitary demand for death penalty for the rapists.

Kolkata has witnessed protests by various political parties and outfits in the past few days against the rise in rapes and murders in the state.

According to National Crime Records Bureau, West Bengal tops the chart of crime against women with 30,942 incidents of crime against women in the province in 2012 as against 29,133 the year before.

Public outrage over the fatal gang rape of a woman in New Delhi in December forced the government into passing a new, tougher law to punish sex crimes and hold police and hospital authorities more responsible. This includes sentences of up to two years in jail for police officials if they fail to register a complaint.