Mamata Banerjee claims Kaliganj case was ‘love affair’ based totally on Whatsapp messages
On Wednesday (April 26), West Bengal Chief Minister stirred the hornet’s nest after she claimed that the alleged ‘rape and murder case in Kaliganj was a ‘love affair’ gone mistaken.
While addressing a press conference at Nabanna (State Secretariat), she claimed, “Amader o dukho hoi… Kintu amra Whatsapp total ta peyechi…Tader modhe ekta bhalobashar udyog o chilo (We feel bad about it….But we have seen Whatsapp messages… There was a love affair.”
“Doctors said she had taken poison. It’s a suicide case. The police are investigating,” she was quoted as saying. Although the investigation is in a preliminary stage, Mamata Banerjee went out of her method to suggest that there was no foul play inside the demise of the Kaliganj sufferer.
On April 21 morning, the lifeless physique of a 17-year-old Dalit girl was discovered floating in a canal inside the Kaliagunj house in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal. The kins of the sufferer alleged that {{the teenager}} was raped earlier to her murder.
The girl had gone missing on her method to tuition classes on April 20. As per opinions, the police had arrested two individuals, along with one Javed Akhtar, who was acknowledged to the sufferer. The National Commission of Women (NCW) has taken cognisance of the matter.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Mamata Banerjee had immediate that allegations of rape devoted inside the State have been each bitter amorous affairs or motivated by political vendetta. In the earlier, she has even accused victims of lying and staging a ‘rape’ to defame her authorities.
Mamata Banerjee, TMC and dismissing rape situations
An Anglo-Indian girl, Suzette Jordan, was raped in a transferring automotive by 5 males on February 6, 2012, when she was returning residence from Park Street in Kolkata.
Soon after the knowledge surfaced, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee absolved the accused of all bills. She had dubbed the incident as ‘shajano ghotona‘ (concocted incident), which was allegedly ‘designed to malign the government.’
While chatting with a data channel, TMC MP Kakoli Ghose Dhastidar solid aspersions on the character of the sufferer and likewise dominated out the rape angle.
Rape survivor Suzette Jordan, image by way of Livemint
She mentioned, “If you are referring to the Park Street case, see that’s a different one altogether. It’s not at all a rape case. It was a misunderstanding between two people in a professional dealing between the lady and her client.”
At the an identical time, the then Transport Minister had moreover questioned the sufferer’s character and known as the grievance faux. 3 years later in 2015, a Kolkata Court upheld the rape bills inside the Park Street case and found accused Nasir Khan, Ruman Khan and Sumit Bajaj accountable.
In 2013, all through a debate inside the West Bengal legislative assembly regarding the rising situations of rapes inside the State, the CM had insinuated that it was on account of an increase inside the inhabitants of the State. She had moreover blamed modernisation, an increase in shopping for malls and multiplexes for rising rape situations.
During one different rape case in Burdwan’s Katwa within the an identical yr, Mamata Banerjee as soon as extra dismissed the rape allegations, even sooner than the investigation was concluded.
“A political party is doing all this, shouting rape. They are playing this drama. Harmader diye natok shajachhe jatey Banglar nam kharap hochhe (They are staging an act to give a bad name to West Bengal)”, she was heard as saying.
Screengrab of the Telegraph report
In April ultimate yr, Mamata Banerjee courted controversy after she tried to downplay allegations of brutal rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl as a ‘love affair’ gone mistaken.
The incident, in question, befell on April 4, 2022, inside the Shyamnagar locality in Hanskhali Block Number- I inside the Nadia district of West Bengal. The accused has been acknowledged as one Brajgopal, the son of Trinamool Congress (TMC) Gajna Gram Panchayat member Samar Gowla.
While speaking on the inauguration of the revamped Milan Mela on April 11, she claimed, “As a layman, I am saying where would someone get the evidence whether the girl was actually raped or pregnant. Or was there any other reason, like someone beat her up or she died of some illness?”
“There was a love affair for sure, her family knew about it, and their neighbours also knew about it. Now if a girl and a boy love each other, I cannot punish them”, alleged Mamata Banerjee.
While her newest remarks have stirred a hullabaloo in political circles of West Bengal, there could also be nothing beautiful offered that Mamata Banerjee has a stellar file at trivialising rape and victim-blaming.
