In Mamata’s West Bengal, women are not safe. Whether it be the post-poll violence inflicted upon women associated with the BJP or the party’s supporters, or now, those being subjected to unspeakable cruelties due to a complete breakdown of law and order in the state – the TMC regime’s ineptitude to prevent such crimes and perhaps, culpability in them has ensured that the lives of Bengal’s women are made a living hell. Incidentally, nobody is talking about the atrocities being committed against the women of West Bengal. Liberals and radical ‘feminists’ are all maintaining a stoic silence on the issue.
In Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri, a minor Dalit girl was allegedly forced to drink liquor and then stripped and videographed by a couple. According to the Times of India, the accused woman, Pratima Sarkar, is a member of Gadang I gram panchayat. She has been arrested while her husband, Partha Sarkar, is absconding. The girl worked as a domestic help at the couple’s house in Khalaigram village. A complaint is said to have been lodged under the POCSO Act.
In Alipurduar, a 35-year-old tribal woman was paraded naked and beaten up by villagers on June 10 for “leaving her husband for another man”. The incident took place on Thursday when the woman returned to her husband’s house after six months. The Indian Express reported that a Kangaroo court of village elders decided to strip the woman naked as a form of “punishment” for her alleged extramarital affair with a man from a neighbouring village. Three persons have been arrested and remanded into custody.
In another case reported out of Jalpaiguri on Tuesday night, a Rajbanshi woman was thrashed and had her head shaved in Maynaguri due to an alleged extramarital affair with a neighbour. TOI reported that the woman from Betgara village was raided at her home by neighbours, beaten up and had her head shaved despite her husband’s appeals against torturing her.
Reported by TFI earlier, several women, who have been allegedly subjected to gang-rape by Mamata’s band of TMC hooligans, have approached the Supreme Court to seek relief and safeguard their lives. The victims have called on the Supreme Court to initiate an SIT probe into the incidents of post-poll violence against women and the supposed inaction of the state police.
Meanwhile, in a viral video that had recently gone viral on social media, a Muslim TMC leader told a Dalit BJP leader to send his wife for few days to him for being allowed to return to his village. “Send your wife Pinki to me for few days, then only we will allow you back in the village,” were the words of a local TMC leader, Muzaffar, to the husband of a Hindu Dalit BJP worker in Minakhan assembly constituency area, district North 24 Parganas, West Bengal.
It thus becomes abundantly clear that women in West Bengal are not safe under the rule of Mamata Banerjee. In such a scenario, the Centre might want to step in as soon as possible to save the women of West Bengal from being victimised in a volatile environment.