[Reader-list] Democracy in WB

[A. Mani]

Source PD, TOI
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Protesting a Rape is a Crime in Mamata’s Wonderland



>From Our Special Correspondent in Kolkata



HERE’S how Mamata Banerjee, the ‘firebrand’ chief minister of West
Bengal, exposed herself. In a most bizarre manner she demonstrated to
the whole world that she would not allow any questions, any protests
in her supposed fiefdom.



It took ten days for the woman chief minister of the state to visit
the family and village of the girl who was brutally raped and murdered
at Kamduni, Barasat. Ever since the incident of rape happened, the
people of the village have been demanding that the chief minister
visit their village and redress their grievances. Barasat has emerged
as a notorious place for criminals and rapists who have been harassing
women of the area for a long period of time. Illegal liquor dens and
misbehaviour, abuse and sexual harassment are flourishing in the area
with impunity while the local administration is turning a blind eye.
The latest incident of rape of a college student was the last straw in
the camel’s back for the people of the area. It is in this context
that the people of Kamduni expected that their grievances be heard by
the chief minister herself.



Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hardly spent five minutes with the
family of the girl and hurried out of the house. By then a large
number of people had gathered, particularly women, who were raising
slogans demanding punishment for the culprits and asking the CM to
listen to their grievances. The spontaneous outpouring of emotions and
anger of the people of that area however made the chief minister
angry. When a woman asked the CM to speak to them she was shouted down
and told to keep quiet by the CM herself. The CM also alleged that the
woman was doing politics to which the lady responded that it was the
CM who was doing politics. In the most shameless manner, the CM
instead of trying to calm down the villagers, alleged that those who
were protesting are CPI(M) activists. It needs to be noted that all
but one panchayat seat in the area have been won ‘uncontested’ by the
TMC in the ensuing panchayat elections.



And what happened after the five-minute safari of the queen was more
chilling. Among many reports in the media, here is one from The Times
of India:



"Shut up", West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had shouted at
Kamduni women on Monday. Her party toughs ensured they did. When TOI
visited the village on Tuesday, the roar of a hundred women the
previous day had been replaced by a deadening stillness.



Branded "CPM supporters" and browbeaten by the CM, the women shut up
and shut themselves indoors. On Monday, they had rushed to their Didi
simply to seek safety in an area where sexual brutality is the order
of the day. Mamata's outburst shocked them. Trinamool Congress' scare
tactics silenced them.



Party toughs targeted Tumpa Koyal, who had gone eyeball to eyeball
with Mamata on Monday, demanding that the Kamduni women be heard.
Tumpa was a friend of the rape-murder victim and had studied with her
till Class X. She had left her lunch on Monday and run after the CM,
pleading to be heard. Mamata turned around and called her a CPM
supporter.



On Tuesday, a rough-talking lungi-clad man, who identified himself as
gram sabhapati Goutam Naskar, arrived at Tumpa's doorstep along with
seven-eight musclemen and threatened her parents, demanding that she
apologize publicly for "insulting our beloved chief minister".



"Mind it, this is for your own good," he cautioned.



Luckily, her husband had whisked her away in the dead of night. Naskar
then demanded her mobile number. Her parents said they didn't have it.
"You want me to believe that you don't have your daughter's contact
number?" he thundered, warning everyone around that "party leaders"
had started collecting "bio-data on all Kamduni women".



Tumpa's parents pleaded with folded hands to spare her, but Naskar
shooed them away, saying Tumpa had to "stand in the middle of the
village courtyard and confess she had committed a grave mistake".



"Do you know how easy it is to get hold of someone's mobile number,"
Naskar warned her parents as he walked off.



The village courtyard, which was bustling for the past few days,
looked deserted. The lanes were all but empty. The local school
couldn't even muster 30% attendance as the frightened villagers kept
their kids indoors. Some women sitting at a tubewell scurried off when
TOI tried to talk to them. One of them covered her face with her hands
and said: "Don't ask us anything. We haven't seen anything, said
anything or know anything. We don't even exist." The stink of fear was
stifling.



It took an hour or so of knocking on doors before they opened up. "We
ran after Didi just to tell our problems. We thought she would
understand the village women's fear. Instead, she treated us like
dogs," said Shankari Mondal. "She (Mamata Banerjee) has ruthlessly
shattered our confidence. The message is clear to the culprits,
they'll reclaim their territory in a few days. The whole village fears
the worst."



Their fear is understandable, said Debu Mondal, a villager. "The women
had lost all hope on the police and local leaders. Yesterday, they
lost their last, very deep-rooted hope when Didi cursed them. Where
will they go now?"



"We are scared. The whole village is tagged as 'CPM'. Tell me, do you
see a single CPM flag anywhere? This time, only one Left Front
candidate could file his nomination in the 12 seats. Trinamool has a
clean sweep here. We apprehend her anger will give rise to an evil
force. We were only trying to bring some peace and stability in this
unfortunate village," said Poritosh Mondal, a farmer.

Immediately, Kamduni was brought under strong surveillance of both
ruling party and state police. Trinamool Congress set up kind of a
‘check post’ and watched every movement. The village women were
threatened time and again. Known miscreants were brought from outside
to ‘control’ Kamduni residents.



Finally, the chief minister accused publicly that those who tried to
talk to her on her visit were all CPI(M), Maoists and they had planned
to kill her. “I know from their dress that that they were planning to
murder me”, claimed she. It was not a ridiculous figment of
imagination of a distorted mind, these utterances were cold blooded
threat to the residents of Kamduni so that they keep really ‘shut up’.





It has become a habit of the CM to blame everything on the CPI(M) and
the Left whenever uncomfortable questions are asked to her. Moreover,
she also has the habit of targeting individuals for raising questions
about her government. The plight of Prof. Ambikesh Mahapatra,
Shiladitya Chowdhury and Tania Bharadwaj has not been forgotten by the
people of the state. Such undemocratic behaviour does not befit the
elected head of the state of West Bengal. The people of Kamduni and
other places are living a life of constant terror, sexual harassment
and the threat of rape. In such circumstances, the minimum that a head
of the government must do is to guarantee them safety and security.
However, the chief minister hardly believes in such civilised and
democratic responses to the needs of the people.



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Best

A. Mani


--
A. Mani
CU, ASL, AMS, CLC, CMS
http://www.logicamani.in