Opposition parties in Bengal on Sunday accused chief minister Mamata Banerjee of trying to trivialise the alleged rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl at Jaynagar in South 24-Parganas.
The Opposition directed its tirade against Mamata, who at the inauguration of Durga Puja in Alipore on Sunday, slammed what she claimed was selective outrage.
“When one or two incidents happen in Bengal, there is too much hue and cry and lament. It should happen, they have the right. But when (similar) incidents happen elsewhere, they have leucoplast on their lips. There is not a single protest (by them),” Mamata said, but also stressed strong action against those who commit such heinous crimes.
Though in an oblique reference to the Jaynagar incident, the chief minister later in her speech said that POCSO provisions should be included in the case and the accused punished within three months, Opposition leaders attacked her for trying to “trivialise” the incident and backing the police who they accused of inaction.
“In the last 12 years, she has continued to trivialise such crimes and refuses to learn a lesson. She described the RG Kar incident and in the past referred to the Park Street rape as ‘sajano ghotona’ (framed case). Whenever incidents of rape have happened in the state she tried to brush them aside as minor incidents. She did the same thing after the Kamduni rape. The RG Kar incident has proved she (Mamata) has built a syndicate of criminality and corruption.... By describing such crimes as one-off incidents, she is clearly protecting the system that she has created,” CPM state secretary Md Salim told The Telegraph.
A CPM leader pointed out that Mamata's "Raja chaley bazar toh kutta bhauke hazar (when a king heads for the market, dogs bark)" remark showed her "arrogance" towards protesters.
The BJP said Mamata was unaware of the people’s anger that built up against her and the Trinamool-led state government.
“For 12 years we have been hearing her say such things.... She should not forget these small sparks of protest will one day snowball to explode in her face. That day is not far away,” said BJP Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharya.
The Congress also slammed the chief minister for treating lightly the “barbaric” Jaynagar incident.
At Jaynagar and Kultali on Sunday, frontal organisations of the CPM and the BJP held separate protests against the alleged rape and murder of the nine-year-old girl, while a team of senior doctors associated with the RG Kar movement met the girl’s family.
While CPM’s frontal organisations — the SFI, the DYFI and AIDWA — took out a march in Jaynagar, the police resorted to lathicharge when BJP supporters, led by state president Sukanta Majumdar and MLA Agnimitra Paul protested against police inaction near Kultali police station.
“If only 10 per cent of this police force had tried to find this minor girl two days ago and filed an FIR, things would have been different, and none of us would be here,” Majumdar said.
“The police are trying to suppress a democratic agitation,” he added.
SFI leader Dipsita Dhar said: “We were not allowed to enter (the morgue on Saturday night). We were beaten up....”
“What they could do at RG Kar (allegedly tamper with evidence) they couldn’t do here (in Jaynagar)," she added.
A police officer said: “A mortuary is not a place for public gathering and they were trying to snatch the body.”
The police filed FIRs against CPM leaders Minakshi Mukherjee, Dipsita Dhar and BJP leaders Paul and Priyanka Tibrewal.
