Kolkata law student gangrape: Bengal BJP unit chief detained over protest

Union Minister and West Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar was detained by Kolkata Police on Saturday (June 28) during a protest rally by the saffron party over the alleged gangrape of a first-year student at South Calcutta Law College in Kolkata.

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The 24-year-old woman had gone to the college on June 25 to fill out a form for a test and was forced to stay back in the union room even after it was completed. She was raped allegedly by three men including an alumnus, police said.

So far, police have arrested four persons, including a security guard at the institution. The victim, in her written complaint to the police, alleged that the security guard did not help her.

The torture, the victim alleged, started around 7.30 pm and went on till well past 10.30 pm.

Majumdar hits out at CM

Majumdar hit out at the ruling TMC and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “This is the face of democracy in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee has ruined democracy in the state...The police has arrested me and other workers (of the BJP)...,” he said.

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On his X (formerly Twitter) account, he shared images of police action against BJP workers during the protest and said that “rule of law no longer exists in West Bengal”.

“In the tyrannical reign of Chief Minister @MamataOfficial, even though the rule of law no longer exists in West Bengal at this moment, efforts to suppress the voices of the opposition through the ruler's fabricated laws continue unabated. Therefore, today as well, while protesting against a brutal gang rape incident in Gariahat, we were unjustly arrested by the sycophantic @KolkataPolice, who have become the personal servants of Mamata Banerjee! (sic),” he wrote in Bengali.

“Our struggle will continue until the roots of this anarchy called the Trinamool Congress are completely uprooted from West Bengal. No rogue force, no barricade, no servile police force can stop the BJP. We will fulfil our resolve to make West Bengal free from sin,” he added.

BJP demands Mamata’s resignation

Earlier on Saturday, the BJP said Banerjee should apologise and offer to resign over the incident, alleging all the accused are linked to the TMC.

“It is in a way state-sponsored brutality and a heinous crime motivated by politics,” BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said while reading out parts of the victim’s statement narrating the details of the crime and threats to her and her family made by the accused.

He said BJP president J P Nadda has formed a four-member committee which will visit the state to investigate the matter and present its findings. Biplab Kumar Deb and Manan Kumar Mishra, both MPs, and Satyapal Singh and Meenakshi Lekhi, both former parliamentarians, are its members.

Patra told reporters that the entire country is in sorrow and shock over the happenings in West Bengal while noting that a number of gruesome crimes against women have occurred there in recent times.

People expected more sensitivity for women in a state with a woman chief minister, but there is so much insensitivity instead, he said.

She should apologise and offer to resign, Patra demanded.

Main accused’s photos with TMC leaders

The main accused, Monojit Mishra, once held a position in the student union of the Trinamool Congress while other accused are also union members, he said, rejecting the state's ruling party's claim of having no association with them.

Patra said what happened in the guard room of the college was right out of a horror movie having demons inflicting atrocities on women.

“These TMC goons behaved in a similar manner with the victim, a 24-year-old and first-year student, who was allegedly assaulted for turning down the marriage proposal of the main accused.”

Patra showed Mishra’s pictures with several TMC leaders to make the point about his association with the state's ruling party.

(With agency inputs)