News Analysis India

Tag: West Bengal

  • West Bengal: CBI plans to conduct DNA tests in Hanskhali rape case

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is planning to conduct DNA tests in the Hanskhali rape case to check whether the samples collected from the crime spot match with those found on the arrested accused, an officer of the agency said on Friday.

    A class 9 student was allegedly raped on April 4 in Hanskhali in West Bengal’s Nadia district during a birthday party at the house of the prime accused, a local TMC leader’s son.

    She had died after the incident.

    Her father filed a police complaint on April 10, and alleged that the accused had snatched the body at gunpoint and cremated her.

    CBI sleuths visited the house again on Friday morning to gather more evidence, after collecting samples from the spot on Thursday night.

    They plan to collect samples from the arrested accused.

    “We will collect DNA samples from the arrested accused and match those with the samples found from the spot. This will be a crucial step in our investigation. We will continue our search operations at different locations in Hanskhali,” the officer told PTI over the phone.

    CBI sleuths had on Thursday broken open the lock of the prime accused’s house and searched the crime spot.

    They were accompanied by personnel of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory and the entire search operation and evidence collection was videographed.

    The search continued till late on Thursday night and was delayed due to a power cut in the area.

    The central investigating agency has been directed by Calcutta High Court to probe the incident.

    Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had expressed doubt about the cause of the girl’s death, which her family attributed to rape, and wondered whether the class 9 student died after falling down upon being slapped by someone.

    Banerjee had claimed that the deceased had an affair with the prime accused and wondered if she was pregnant.

    She had also asked why the victim’s family had filed a police complaint five days after cremating the body.

    Opposition parties described Banerjee’s statement as “shocking” and alleged that she sought to shield the accused as he is the son of a leader of her party.

  • Probe gets compromised if people in authority are judgmental: Bengal guv on Hanskhali rape case

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: In an apparent dig at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her remarks on a minor girl’s alleged rape and subsequent death in Nadia district’s Hanskhali area, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday said that the investigation could get compromised if people in authority “indicate judgmental stance”.

    He said that such approaches could “scuttle fair probe”.

    Dhankhar also called upon the state chief secretary and the DGP to brief him on the incident by 4 pm on Wednesday.

    “Criminal Investigation in shameful rape #Hanskhali leading to victim death is tainted & compromised when people in authority & constitutional position indicate judgmental stance,” the governor tweeted, without naming anyone.

    Dhankhar, who has had several run-ins with the TMC government in the state over multiple issues, also said, “This against the law approach scuttles fair & independent probe as police is forced to toe such line (sic).”

    Banerjee had on Monday expressed doubt over the cause of the girl’s death, although her family attributed it to gang rape, and wondered if the demise of the Class 9 student could have been caused after being slapped by someone.

    Maintaining that the victim had an affair with the accused, the son of a TMC leader, Banerjee also wondered if she was pregnant. Two persons, including the TMC leader’s son, have been arrested in the case thus far.

    The governor also called upon the chief secretary and the director general of police (DGP) to brief him, by Wednesday evening, on the alleged incidents of attacks on Ram Navami processions in Howrah on Sunday.

  • BJP activists demonstrate before Raj Bhavan demanding President Rule in Bengal

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: A group of BJP workers on Tuesday demonstrated before Raj Bhavan here to demand the imposition of President’s Rule in the state citing the “collapse of law and order” in the state.

    About 20 demonstrators, led by BJP leader and councillor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation Sajal Ghosh, raised slogans ‘ei Trinamool aar noy’ (not this TMC-run government anymore), obilombe Rastrapatir Sashon jari korte hobey'(demand immediate imposition of President’s Rule), and also tried to squat on the road in front of the Main Gate of the Raj Bhavan before they were removed from the spot.

    The activists staged the agitation in front of the Raj Bhavan despite the issuance of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the high-security area.

    “From Anis Khan murder to the incident at Bogtui where nine people were burnt to death, gang rape and death of a 14-year- old girl in Hanskhali to the attack on Ram Navami processionists in Howrah, this government under Mamata Banerjee has miserably failed to prevent such incidents,” Ghosh claimed.

    Demanding Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s intervention, Ghosh said “Article 365 should be immediately promulgated in West Bengal to put an end to this lawlessness”.

    Under Article 365 of the Constitution, if a state government is unable to function according to Constitutional provisions, the Centre can take direct control of the State machinery.

    A police officer said around 20 BJP activists were taken to Lalbazar, Kolkata Police headquarters, for violating prohibitory orders. They were, however, released on personal bond.

    Trinamool Congress state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said “the BJP is yet to accept its humiliating defeat in the last assembly polls and is now conspiring against a democratically elected government.” However, the game plan of the saffron party will not succeed, he added.

  • Wonder if minor died after being slapped, Mamata on Hanskhali ‘gang-rape’

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday expressed doubt about the cause of a minor girl’s death which her family attributed to gang rape, and wondered if the class 9 student of Hanskhali in Nadia district died after a fall after being slapped by someone.

    Asserting that the victim had an affair with the accused, a Trinamool Congress leader’s son who was arrested, Banerjee wondered if she was pregnant.

    The chief minister also asked why the girl’s family members lodged a police complaint five days after her death and cremating the body.

    Opposition parties described Banerjee’s statement as “shocking” and alleged that she seeks to shield the accused as he is the son of a leader of her party.

    West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar sought an urgent report from the state chief secretary on the alleged gang rape and death of the minor girl. The girl died after she was allegedly gang-raped at a birthday party at the house of the accused on April 5.

    She was bleeding profusely when she returned home and died later that night, according to her parents who lodged a police complaint on April 10.

    “The police are yet to understand the cause of the death. I had asked them. Will you call it rape or was she pregnant? Was it (the fallout of) a love affair? Have you enquired about these? This is an unfortunate incident,” Banerjee said while inaugurating the Biswa Banga Mela Prangan here.

    She said that her family members and local people knew about the affair between the girl and the accused. “You (girl’s family) also conducted the last rites of the body. I am talking as a layman. From where will they (police) get the evidence whether she was raped or she was pregnant or there was any other reason such as she was slapped by someone after which she fell ill,” Banerjee said.

    A detailed investigation is being carried out, she said adding that she will ask the state commission for protection of child rights to take up the case. “I do not have any word to sympathise with the family,” Banerjee said.

    Those who are in relationships should be cautious so that people in the guise of being friends cannot harm them, she added.

    The girl died on April 5 and the police got the information on April 10, the TMC supremo said and asked about the cause of the delay.

    Banerjee also alleged that a section of the media is trying to tarnish the image of West Bengal but she would lay down her life to protect her “motherland”.

    She questioned why the Press Club Kolkata, as well as the Press Council of India, are silent when seven journalists were stripped to their underwear in Madhya Pradesh for allegedly writing reports against the BJP government.

    The opposition BJP panned Banerjee for her comment and wondered whether her remarks were aimed at influencing the probe.

    “Shocking statement by Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who trivialises the brutal rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Nadia’s Hanskhali. She questions the victim and asks if it was a love affair or a case of unplanned pregnancy gone awry! Because the accused is TMC leader’s son,” senior BJP leader and the party’s co-in charge of West Bengal, Amit Malviya, tweeted.

    Echoing him, the Leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari said such kind of comments only prove how Banerjee is trying to influence the probe and shield the culprits.

    “When any such incident occurs in BJP-ruled states, she is the first to protest against it. But when similar incidents take place in West Bengal, she tries to shield the culprits. It is shameful that despite being a woman chief minister, she is making such comments. This is the real picture of the lawless situation of Bengal,” he said.

    The CPI(M) and the Congress also slammed Banerjee for her comments.

    Leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha and state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury claimed that several such incidents happening in West Bengal go unreported.

    “We don’t get to know about them. Now we have come to know about this incident. What has happened is horrific. The ruling party is trying to influence the probe,” he said.

    Senior CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty alleged that the incident proves there is lawlessness in Bengal.

    The ruling TMC condemned the incident but said it should not be politicised.

    “The police are investigating the matter and have also made an arrest. Let the investigation be over. The opposition should not try to politicise the matter,” TMC spokesperson and state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said.

    The girl’s mother had on Sunday told reporters that from the sequence of events and after talking to the people present at the party, “we are sure she was gang-raped by the accused and his friends”.

    She also alleged that a group of people forcibly took the minor’s body for cremation even before her death certificate was issued.

    Meanwhile, a petition was filed before the Calcutta High Court on Monday seeking a CBI probe into the alleged rape and resultant death of the minor girl. The petitioner’s lawyer said the matter is likely to be mentioned before the court on Tuesday.

  • Bengal LoP, suspended from assembly, protests after being prevented from entering chamber

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who has been suspended from the West Bengal Assembly for the entire session till the House is prorogued, on Monday staged a sit-in protest on the premises after he was prevented from entering his chamber.

    Adhikari, along with four other BJP MLAs, was suspended by the speaker from the assembly after legislators from the saffron party and the TMC came to blows inside the House on the last day of the budget session in March over the Birbhum killings.

    Prorogation is discontinuing a session of Parliament or a Legislative Assembly without dissolving it. When Adhikari, the Nandigram MLA, came to the assembly, he was prevented from entering his chamber citing the suspension notice.

    Infuriated, he and some other BJP legislators sat on a demonstration near the statue of B R Ambedkar on the premises. “This is autocratic. For the first time, an LoP has been stopped from entering his chamber in the assembly. The entire country knows how I was suspended in an undemocratic manner. As I am not allowed to enter my chamber, I would carry out my official work from this spot every day. This will be my office till I get to enter my chamber,” he told reporters.

    Speaker Biman Banerjee could not be contacted for a comment.

    Senior TMC leader and party chief whip in the assembly, Nirmal Ghosh, said Adhikari should stop creating a scene as he is well aware that a suspended member is not allowed to enter the assembly premises.

    “Any member who has been suspended is generally not allowed to enter the assembly premises. He (Adhikari) is very well aware of it. He is just doing drama to get some mileage in the media,” he said.

    Adhikari, along with BJP legislators Dipak Burman, Shankar Ghosh, Manoj Tigga and Narahari Mahato, was on March 28 suspended for the entire session till the House is prorogued.

    The House had plunged into chaos on that day as MLAs of both sides engaged in fisticuffs, leading to the hospitalisation of some of the legislators.

    The incident happened after BJP MLAs trooped to the well, demanding a statement by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the “worsening” law and order situation in the wake of Birbhum killings, in which nine people (eight at that time) died of burn injuries after assailants threw petrol bombs at several houses in Bogtui village near Rampurhat on March 21 following the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.

    Even as the speaker tried to pacify the BJP MLAs, who continued sloganeering, a war of words broke out with legislators of the treasury bench which eventually led to the ugly scuffle.

    The incident brought back memories of opposition Left and ruling TMC legislators trading blows in December 2012 on the floor of the House, leading to injuries on both sides.

  • CBI arrests one more person in Birbhum killings case

    By PTI

    RAMPURHAT: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday apprehended one more person in connection with the Birbhum killings, taking the total number of arrests made by the agency in the case to five, an official said.

    The accused, identified as Samir Sheikh, a resident of Bogtui village, was called by CBI sleuths for questioning on Sunday morning, he said.

    “This man’s name cropped up every time we spoke with eye-witnesses. Today, he was giving us different versions and trying to confuse us. We arrested him and will continue questioning him,” the CBI official said.

    Earlier, the CBI had arrested four accused people from Mumbai.

    The West Bengal Police had further arrested 22 people for their alleged involvement in the case.

    All of them are presently in CBI custody.

    Nine people died of burn injuries after assailants threw petrol bombs at several houses in Bogtui village near Rampurhat town on March 21 following the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.

    A Special Investigation Team constituted by the state government was earlier probing the case, which was later handed over to the CBI as per the Calcutta High Court’s order.

  • Minor girl dies after suspected gang-rape, son of local TMC leader held

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: A minor girl died after she was allegedly gang-raped at a birthday party in Hanskhali in West Bengal’s Nadia district, police said on Sunday.

    The girl’s family claimed that the main accused is the son of a Trinamool Congress panchayat member, who has been arrested for further investigation, they said.

    The parents of the minor, a student of Class 9, lodged a complaint against the accused at Hanskhali police station on Saturday, four days after the incident.

    According to the complaint, the girl went to the residence of the accused on Monday afternoon to attend his birthday party, but she returned home in an ailing condition and died soon after.

    “Our daughter was bleeding profusely and had severe abdominal pain after she came back from the party at the residence of the local TMC leader’s son, and before we could take her to hospital, she died.”

    “From the sequence of events and after talking to the people present at the party, we are sure she was gang-raped by the accused and his friends,” the girl’s mother told reporters.

    She also alleged that a group of people forcibly took the minor’s body for cremation even before her death certificate was issued.

    Reacting to the development, senior TMC leader and the state’s Minister of Women and Child Development, Sashi Panja, said the ruling party has zero tolerance for abuse of minors and women.

    “There should not be any politics over the incident. Police will do everything possible to investigate and take further action,” she said.

    Meanwhile, opposition BJP has called for a 12-hour bandh in Hanskhali in protest against the incident.

  • Investigating multiple cases, Central agencies roam in Trinamool backyard

    Express News Service

    KOLKATA:  The Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal is facing the heat of Central agencies probing multiple cases in the state. While the CBI is investigating four cases, all of them based on the orders of Calcutta High Court, the Enforcement Directorate is looking into a money laundering case which allegedly involves the chief minister’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee. 

    The TMC government has been opposing probes by the Central agencies into all these cases. In the latest development, the state on Thursday moved the division bench of Calcutta High Court challenging a single bench order transferring to the CBI the probe into a Congress councillor’s murder in Purulia.

    The state government told the HC that a special investigation team constituted by it had almost wrapped up the case and at this stage, there was no point in transferring the case to the CBI.  Another high-profile case which the CBI took over recently is the massacre of nine people in Birbhum district. 

    The other two cases being probed by the CBI are the alleged irregularity in recruitment through School Service Commission (SSC) and a cattle smuggling racket involving a TMC leader and a paramilitary official. Besides, armed with the high court order, the ED is probing into a money laundering case in connection with coal pilferage in which Abhishek Banerjee and his wife, Rujira, have been summoned on several occasions.

    “This is for the first time the state government is facing investigations by the Central agencies in so many cases at a time. Before 2011, Mamata used to call for CBI probe into various incidents during the Left Front rule. She had used it as a political tool to attack the then ruling party,” said a senior TMC leader, adding, “Now she never misses an opportunity to attack the BJP-led Centre alleging it was using the agencies for political vendetta.”

    BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar said the HC ordering CBI probe into these cases reflected that the judiciary doesn’t have faith on the state police. “The worst massacre, malpractices and smuggling of cattle establish the sorry state of law and order, and there was no way left other than the court’s intervention,” he said.

  • Bengal: Eye-witness in Congress councillor’s murder found dead

    By PTI

    PURULIA (WB): An eye-witness in Congress councillor Tapan Kandu’s murder was found dead on Wednesday morning in West Bengal’s Purulia district, police said.

    The body of Niranjan Baishnab, a close associate of Kandu, was found hanging from the ceiling in his house in Jhalda’s Baishabpara, they said.

    A note purportedly written by Baishanb, a teacher, was recovered from the room where his body was found, a police officer said. “We have sent the body for post mortem. We are investigating the matter,” he said.

    In the note, Baishnab purportedly claimed that he was under severe stress because of repeated phone calls from the police in connection with the murder of Kandu.

    “I have been under mental stress since the day I saw Tapan’s death. The scene of his death is coming back to my mind every moment. The mental stress is aggravated by the repeated calls from the police,” said the note. “I had never visited any police station in my life. This is becoming unbearable. I have taken this decision on my own and no one has forced me to take my life,” it added.

    Baishnab’s body was found on a day the Congress called a 12-hour bandh in Jhalda over Kandu’s killing, and TMC forming the civic board in the town.

    The CBI is scheduled to reach Jhalda on Wednesday to take over the investigation into the murder, following the direction of the Calcutta High Court. Kandu was shot dead on March 13 while he was out on an evening walk near his residence.

    He had won ward number two of Jhalda Municipality for the fourth time in the civic polls held in February and was a popular leader in the area.

    The verdict of the voters threw up a hung board in Jhalda Municipality, with the Congress and Trinamool Congress having won five seats each and Independents securing two seats.

  • ‘What about Visva-Bharati?’: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee amid Aliah University row

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Stating that her government took action against the former TMCP student leader who heckled the vice-chancellor of state-run Aliah University, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday sought to know what steps were initiated against the VC of Visva-Bharati, a central university.

    Giasuddin Mondal, a former leader of the TMC’s student wing, was seen in a purported video threatening and verbally abusing Aliah University VC Mohammad Ali, following which he was arrested.

    “Police have already made an arrest in the Aliah University incident. What is happening in Visva-Bharati and Bolpur? How many people have been arrested there? Has the VC of Visva-Bharati been arrested?” she told reporters at the state secretariat.

    “A section (community) studies in Aliah University. All are good. There can be discontentment among the students of Aliah University. The one who hurled abuses has been arrested by police. Here police take action,” she added.

    Banerjee’s comments came in the backdrop of ceaseless student protests at the Visva-Bharati in Bolpur’s Santiniketan over a host of issues.

    “Is there any action taken in Visva-Bharati against what this ‘bhadralok’ (gentleman) is doing there,” she said, in an apparent dig.

    Incidentally, Visva-Bharati praised the police and said that similar steps should be taken against those students who had gheraoed senior varsity functionaries last month and used abusive words.