Hundreds take to streets in Delhi

Times View

KOLKATA: After sitting tight for a week on the gang-rape victim’s dying declaration that she had been set on fire, police finally took cognizance of her statement on Thursday and sought Barrackpore court’s permission to slap murder charges against the rape accused. Legal experts, however, said the long silence of police is likely to weaken the murder case since the victim — who is also the lone witness — is dead.Embarrassed by questions like these from state and national agencies and pressure from the civil society, the West Bengal government launched an all-out damage control, led by chief secretary Sanjay Mitra who refuted all charges of police and medical negligence.Chief minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed the opposition outcry a “conspiracy to impede development work by her government”. Mamata chose to ignore the Citu rally with the girl’s body — possibly since it would remind of her own rallying with bodies at Esplanade during the Left Front rule three years ago — and let the chief secretary do the talking.“I strongly deplore the tendency to play politics over a dead body,” Mitra said on Thursday. Leader of the Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra declined to respond to the chief secretary’s comment, saying: “I would only say that the chief secretary should leave politics to politicians. I feel ashamed by what has happened to the victim and her family.”Trinamool Congress leaders had not uttered a single word for the victim’s family, who were taunted by police on Wednesday to “go back to Bihar” after cops hijacked the hearse and tried to forcibly cremate the body. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar expressed his deep anguish over the gang-rape and alleged murder of the 16-year-old and sent IG, special branch, GS Gangwar to Kolkata on Thursday to gather information, meet the bereaved family and give them a cheque of Rs 1 lakh as ex gratia.Sensing the mood, the chief secretary said the Bengal government is “fully with the bereaved family” and will extend all help to them. All the accused have been arrested, he said, rejecting charges of medical negligence. “There is no evidence of this. The victim had severe burn injuries and was kept at the trauma centre and isolation ward. She died of multiple organ failure,” the chief secretary said, putting the lid on an FIR against the hospital superintendent.However, Mitra didn’t respond to why police waited for six days on the victim’s dying statement.The Opposition tore into the government. CPM central committee member Shyamal Chakrabarty accused the administration of playing politics with the dead. “The chief secretary is possibly talking against his own administration. It is police who hijacked the body and tried to cremate it without a death certificate,” he said.Pradesh Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya demanded a CBI inquiry. “This is a barbaric government. How could police take the body for cremation without having valid papers? The policemen who did this should be punished. The state home minister should accept the blame and step down,” Bhattacharya said. In Delhi, Left supporters demonstrated outside Banga Bhawan against the “callous and criminal attitude of the Bengal government towards victims of sexual assault.”Hundreds erupted in protest in the national capital on Thursday over the death of the teenaged gang-rape victim in Kolkata. Many people including women, students and women’s organizations gathered outside Banga Bhawan in a show of solidarity.Kolkata and its neighbouring areas were regarded as among the safest places for women in India not so long ago. It is very unfortunate that today, they are fast emerging as extremely unsafe. The state police must act swiftly and decisively to reverse this trend. For that to happen, the state government must also give up its knee-jerk response of treating complaints of crimes against women as politically motivated.The government must also give the police the confidence that it can take action against those accused of these crimes irrespective of their political affiliations. Sadly, neither of these is happening at the moment.