India: Teenage Girl Raped Twice and Burned Alive in West Bengal
India: Teenage Girl Raped Twice and Burned Alive in West Bengal
West Bengal Gang Rape: Twice-Raped Teenage Girl was Burnt Alive by Attackers
A rape victim in the Indian state of West Bengal has been burned alive by her attackers after authorities failed to act on her initial complaint.
Police reports show that the victim, daughter of a taxi driver from the neighbouring state of Bihar, was raped twice by a local gang before being set on fire by her attackers.
The girl received 65% burns and died on New Year's Eve. Her case, which comes 12 months on from the Delhi gang rape, has sent shockwaves through India, which recently amended laws to ensure tougher penalties for crimes against women.
It is alleged that police lied about the circumstances of the girl's death, claiming she set herself on fire, while the Communist Party of India has alleged that the government of Mamata Banerjee denied justice to the victim and even helped the attackers.
The girl's father, a member of the trade union affiliated to the party, was allegedly even pressured by the police authorities to leave the state and return to his home state of Bihar with the daughter's body.
Horrifying chain of events
The girl and her mother went to police in the town of Madhyamgram after the first rape. However the victim's father subsequently claimed that police made them wait several hours before registering their complaint, and dissuaded the family from taking the legal route.
While returning from the police station, the girl was raped for the second time by the gang, ostensibly seeking revenge for her visit to the police.
"We went back to the police station but they took our signature on a statement written in Bengali, which we could not read. We realised later that it did not mention the second rape but stated my daughter had been molested," the father told the Indian Express newspaper.
The girl had named Sanjib Talukdar, Palash Debnath and three others in her complaint. The police arrested the duo, but this only set off a chain of events which led to the gruesome murder.
After the arrest of Talukdar, who had reportedly campaigned for the ruling Trinamool Congress party, his associates put pressure on the family to withdraw the complaint, threatening them with violence.
"Everywhere, I was insulted and they raised questions about my daughter's character," the girl's father said, according to the paper.
Fearing for their safety, the family moved to an area near Kolkata's Dum Dum airport, but the attackers chased them down. On 23 December, they came to the family's rented home, repeating the threats and demanding they withdraw the complaint.
The girl's mother ran out of the house to telephone her husband, who was out working. But when she returned the house was ablaze with her daughter inside.
'Police officials threatened me'
The girl's father claimed that prompt and efficient treatment was denied to her at the government-run R G Kar Hospital, which did not have a burns unit. The family wanted the girl to be moved to another government-run hospital with a burns unit, but the doctors allegedly refused the request.
Police said the girl had attempted to immolate herself and initial media reports said it was a suicide, but it was revealed later that the girl had said in her dying declaration that she was set on fire by two men.
"In her dying declaration before Dr Sudipta Singh and investigating officer Saidullah Sana at the hospital, she said Ratan Sil and Minta Sil, who were accused in the rape case, set her on fire," Nimbala Santosh Uttamrao, additional deputy commissioner of police, told the Hindustan Times.
The victim's father added: "The police officials threatened me and asked me to leave the state and return to Bihar with the body. The police officials and some local toughs also threatened that if I did not they would stop me from driving my taxi."
The dispute over the cremation of the girl's body has led to clashes between the workers of the ruling party and the opposition.
However the ruling Trinamool Congress has denied giving any assistance to the attackers and said the opposition was trying to tarnish its image.
Kolkata police 'hijack' rape victim's hearse, forcibly cremate body - The Times of India
Kolkata police 'hijack' rape victim's hearse, forcibly cremate body
KOLKATA: Gang-raped twice and dumped in a government hospital for nine days with fatal burns, the 16-year-old victim had no peace even after death. Police hijacked the hearse carrying her body on Tuesday night and forcibly took it for cremation, ignoring the family's requests to wait till Wednesday.
The girl's father rushed to governor M K Narayanan to complain against police high-handedness and demanded action against the "tyrannical" officers.
Police were in such a hurry to cremate her before daybreak that they landed up at the house of the bereaved family - with the body - at 2.30am and threatened to break down their door unless they were given the death certificate that would allow cremation. When the girl's father refused, police officers allegedly told him to go back to Bihar's Samastipur. A police team tormented the family all night.
The unexplained haste and utter disregard for family sentiments by the administration triggered widespread protests in the city. Filmmaker Aparna Sen lent weight to the outcry, saying: "I am devastated. All this should stop." All that the family wanted was to wait for a day for their relatives to come from Bihar. But that was not to be. Around 10.30pm on Tuesday, police intercepted the hearse that was carrying the body from RG Kar Hospital to a mortuary and forcibly took it to the crematorium although they did not have the death certificate, said a relative of the victim. "Sensing something wrong, I jumped off the hearse," he said.
The body lay at the crematorium for over three hours until, around 2pm, police decided to get the certificate from her family. The girl's father narrated in his letter to the governor what happened next. "The superintendent of police and other officers reached our house in the dead of the night and asked us to open the door. We were scared and refused to come out before day broke. They threatened to break down the door and told us to go back to Bihar."
While police were pressuring the family, a stranger - possibly a police plant - appeared on the scene with a poster that said "I Condemn". He tried to pacify the crowd but failed. Then, a self-proclaimed rights activist, Rakesh Upadhyaya, raised a ruckus. "The pressure on us got worse. Protectors had turned tormentors. But I stuck to my stand and refused to come out," the victim's father said. By then, Left activists had started arriving at the house.
Taking a leaf out of Mamata's book as Opposition leader, CPM's labour arm Citu took control of the body on Wednesday, but with the sanction of the family members. Sensing the damage they had done, police backed off and allowed the body to be taken to the Citu state headquarters. CPM supporters took out a huge rally with the body on Wednesday afternoon. The girl's father, who had gone to meet the governor, joined the rally around 3pm and agreed to the cremation only after getting an assurance of protection from Narayanan.
The victim's brother-in-law had no regret that the body lay at the Citu HQ all day long. "CPM was with us when we were camping in the hospital for the last nine days. They helped us. If you call this politics, so be it," he said.
Trinamool leader Mukul Roy reacted by saying: "The incident is unfortunate. The rest is an attempt by the Opposition to denigrate Trinamool and the government." He had no comment on the police haste to cremate the body on Tuesday night.
Police could not give a clear explanation for the night-long drama. "We wanted to ensure that there is no law-and-order problem," said joint commissioner (HQ) Rajeev Mishra. But sources close to the development said police acted under the directions of a Trinamool minister from North 24-Parganas who wanted police to prevent the incident from spilling over into January 1 when Trinamool celebrates its foundation day. "Calls to home secretary Basudeb Banerjee on the police high-handedness on Tuesday night fell on deaf ears," said Leader of the Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra.
NCW questions Kolkata police's role in rape case
National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Mamta Sharma on Wednesday questioned the role of Kolkata Police in the gang rape leading to the death of a minor girl and said had the police been alert, they could have prevented the gang rape a second time.
"The girl was gang-raped once before going to the police station, and while returning, she was gang raped again. I don't think the role of police is right in this case. If the police had been alert, then they could have prevented her from being raped again. The chief minister should take up this case very seriously," said Sharma.
The NCW took suo motu cognizance case. "I am going to write a letter to the CM to answer us in a week why such crimes are happening against women, and what action has been taken in these cases," said Sharma.
She also said the victim was traumatized, and had she been given proper guidance and medical treatment, she wouldn't have committed suicide.
"We are thinking of sending a committee there to analyze the situation," she added.
BBC News - Indian media: Outrage over Calcutta gang rape
Indian media: Outrage over Calcutta gang rape
2 January 2014 Last updated at 02:17 ET
The gang rape of a 16-year-old girl has sparked outrage in Calcutta
Media are reflecting the growing anger in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta over the gang-rape of a teenager.
The 16-year-old girl was raped by a group of men on 26 October and again the next day when she was returning from a police station after filing a complaint, reports said.
The girl set herself on fire on 23 December and succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday, media reports said.
But her father has alleged that she did not kill herself and was instead set ablaze by her rapists.
"The city was rudely shocked after it came to light that the victim told the police on 27 December that a group of criminals set her ablaze and she did not try to commit suicide," the Hindustan Times reports.
Papers said that people of Calcutta were outraged when police allegedly tried to stop the victim's father from organising a condolence meeting before cremating her body.
"Police were in such a hurry to cremate her before daybreak that they landed up at the house of the bereaved family - with the body - at 02:30am [21:00GMT] and threatened to break down their door unless they were given the death certificate that would allow cremation," The Times of Indiareported.
The police "hijacked the body while it was on its way from her home to the mortuary where it was to be kept for the night", reported the NDTV website.
The police apparently wanted to prevent trade unions from taking the body for cremation and use the occasion to protest against the growing cases of violence against women in Calcutta, the report adds.
The website further adds that "the battle for the body raged for three hours at the crematorium till the police suddenly gave in. Clearly, it was on instructions from higher ups".
The incident has sparked outrage in Calcutta.
"The unexplained haste and utter disregard for family sentiments by the administration triggered widespread protests in the city," The Times of India says.
The police, however, deny these allegations and say they wanted to prevent any "law-and-order problem" in the city, the paper adds.
The incident comes a year after the brutal gang rape of a student in Delhi that triggered huge protests across the country.
Cold wave
In another tragic news, at least two homeless people have died in Delhi from cold.
Following the deaths, the new Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has announced that 45 more "night shelters" will be set up for the homeless in the capital, the Hindustan Times reports.
Staying with the AAP, V Balakrishnan, a former board-member of software giant Infosys, has joined the party, reports say.
"I would like to be a part of the revolution happening in the country," theFirstpost website quotes him as saying.
Led by former civil servant Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP was born out of a strong anti-corruption movement that swept India two years ago.
Meanwhile, President Pranab Mukherjee has signed the Lokpal (Ombudsman) Bill and it has officially become a law, The Hindu reports.
The bill, passed by the parliament in December, empowers an independent ombudsman to prosecute politicians and civil servants for corruption.
And finally, three new tiger cubs have been spotted in the Ranthambore tiger reserve in Rajasthan, the Deccan Herald reports.
"It was only after we took a picture of the tigress with her cubs that we were able to confirm the birth," the paper quotes a park official as saying.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
India: Teenage Girl Raped Twice and Burned Alive in West Bengal
West Bengal Gang Rape: Twice-Raped Teenage Girl was Burnt Alive by Attackers
A rape victim in the Indian state of West Bengal has been burned alive by her attackers after authorities failed to act on her initial complaint.
Police reports show that the victim, daughter of a taxi driver from the neighbouring state of Bihar, was raped twice by a local gang before being set on fire by her attackers.
The girl received 65% burns and died on New Year's Eve. Her case, which comes 12 months on from the Delhi gang rape, has sent shockwaves through India, which recently amended laws to ensure tougher penalties for crimes against women.
It is alleged that police lied about the circumstances of the girl's death, claiming she set herself on fire, while the Communist Party of India has alleged that the government of Mamata Banerjee denied justice to the victim and even helped the attackers.
The girl's father, a member of the trade union affiliated to the party, was allegedly even pressured by the police authorities to leave the state and return to his home state of Bihar with the daughter's body.
Horrifying chain of events
The girl and her mother went to police in the town of Madhyamgram after the first rape. However the victim's father subsequently claimed that police made them wait several hours before registering their complaint, and dissuaded the family from taking the legal route.
While returning from the police station, the girl was raped for the second time by the gang, ostensibly seeking revenge for her visit to the police.
"We went back to the police station but they took our signature on a statement written in Bengali, which we could not read. We realised later that it did not mention the second rape but stated my daughter had been molested," the father told the Indian Express newspaper.
The girl had named Sanjib Talukdar, Palash Debnath and three others in her complaint. The police arrested the duo, but this only set off a chain of events which led to the gruesome murder.
After the arrest of Talukdar, who had reportedly campaigned for the ruling Trinamool Congress party, his associates put pressure on the family to withdraw the complaint, threatening them with violence.
"Everywhere, I was insulted and they raised questions about my daughter's character," the girl's father said, according to the paper.
Fearing for their safety, the family moved to an area near Kolkata's Dum Dum airport, but the attackers chased them down. On 23 December, they came to the family's rented home, repeating the threats and demanding they withdraw the complaint.
The girl's mother ran out of the house to telephone her husband, who was out working. But when she returned the house was ablaze with her daughter inside.
'Police officials threatened me'
The girl's father claimed that prompt and efficient treatment was denied to her at the government-run R G Kar Hospital, which did not have a burns unit. The family wanted the girl to be moved to another government-run hospital with a burns unit, but the doctors allegedly refused the request.
Police said the girl had attempted to immolate herself and initial media reports said it was a suicide, but it was revealed later that the girl had said in her dying declaration that she was set on fire by two men.
"In her dying declaration before Dr Sudipta Singh and investigating officer Saidullah Sana at the hospital, she said Ratan Sil and Minta Sil, who were accused in the rape case, set her on fire," Nimbala Santosh Uttamrao, additional deputy commissioner of police, told the Hindustan Times.
The victim's father added: "The police officials threatened me and asked me to leave the state and return to Bihar with the body. The police officials and some local toughs also threatened that if I did not they would stop me from driving my taxi."
The dispute over the cremation of the girl's body has led to clashes between the workers of the ruling party and the opposition.
However the ruling Trinamool Congress has denied giving any assistance to the attackers and said the opposition was trying to tarnish its image.
Kolkata police 'hijack' rape victim's hearse, forcibly cremate body - The Times of India
Kolkata police 'hijack' rape victim's hearse, forcibly cremate body
KOLKATA: Gang-raped twice and dumped in a government hospital for nine days with fatal burns, the 16-year-old victim had no peace even after death. Police hijacked the hearse carrying her body on Tuesday night and forcibly took it for cremation, ignoring the family's requests to wait till Wednesday.
The girl's father rushed to governor M K Narayanan to complain against police high-handedness and demanded action against the "tyrannical" officers.
Police were in such a hurry to cremate her before daybreak that they landed up at the house of the bereaved family - with the body - at 2.30am and threatened to break down their door unless they were given the death certificate that would allow cremation. When the girl's father refused, police officers allegedly told him to go back to Bihar's Samastipur. A police team tormented the family all night.
The unexplained haste and utter disregard for family sentiments by the administration triggered widespread protests in the city. Filmmaker Aparna Sen lent weight to the outcry, saying: "I am devastated. All this should stop." All that the family wanted was to wait for a day for their relatives to come from Bihar. But that was not to be. Around 10.30pm on Tuesday, police intercepted the hearse that was carrying the body from RG Kar Hospital to a mortuary and forcibly took it to the crematorium although they did not have the death certificate, said a relative of the victim. "Sensing something wrong, I jumped off the hearse," he said.
The body lay at the crematorium for over three hours until, around 2pm, police decided to get the certificate from her family. The girl's father narrated in his letter to the governor what happened next. "The superintendent of police and other officers reached our house in the dead of the night and asked us to open the door. We were scared and refused to come out before day broke. They threatened to break down the door and told us to go back to Bihar."
While police were pressuring the family, a stranger - possibly a police plant - appeared on the scene with a poster that said "I Condemn". He tried to pacify the crowd but failed. Then, a self-proclaimed rights activist, Rakesh Upadhyaya, raised a ruckus. "The pressure on us got worse. Protectors had turned tormentors. But I stuck to my stand and refused to come out," the victim's father said. By then, Left activists had started arriving at the house.
Taking a leaf out of Mamata's book as Opposition leader, CPM's labour arm Citu took control of the body on Wednesday, but with the sanction of the family members. Sensing the damage they had done, police backed off and allowed the body to be taken to the Citu state headquarters. CPM supporters took out a huge rally with the body on Wednesday afternoon. The girl's father, who had gone to meet the governor, joined the rally around 3pm and agreed to the cremation only after getting an assurance of protection from Narayanan.
The victim's brother-in-law had no regret that the body lay at the Citu HQ all day long. "CPM was with us when we were camping in the hospital for the last nine days. They helped us. If you call this politics, so be it," he said.
Trinamool leader Mukul Roy reacted by saying: "The incident is unfortunate. The rest is an attempt by the Opposition to denigrate Trinamool and the government." He had no comment on the police haste to cremate the body on Tuesday night.
Police could not give a clear explanation for the night-long drama. "We wanted to ensure that there is no law-and-order problem," said joint commissioner (HQ) Rajeev Mishra. But sources close to the development said police acted under the directions of a Trinamool minister from North 24-Parganas who wanted police to prevent the incident from spilling over into January 1 when Trinamool celebrates its foundation day. "Calls to home secretary Basudeb Banerjee on the police high-handedness on Tuesday night fell on deaf ears," said Leader of the Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra.
NCW questions Kolkata police's role in rape case
National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Mamta Sharma on Wednesday questioned the role of Kolkata Police in the gang rape leading to the death of a minor girl and said had the police been alert, they could have prevented the gang rape a second time.
"The girl was gang-raped once before going to the police station, and while returning, she was gang raped again. I don't think the role of police is right in this case. If the police had been alert, then they could have prevented her from being raped again. The chief minister should take up this case very seriously," said Sharma.
The NCW took suo motu cognizance case. "I am going to write a letter to the CM to answer us in a week why such crimes are happening against women, and what action has been taken in these cases," said Sharma.
She also said the victim was traumatized, and had she been given proper guidance and medical treatment, she wouldn't have committed suicide.
"We are thinking of sending a committee there to analyze the situation," she added.
BBC News - Indian media: Outrage over Calcutta gang rape
Indian media: Outrage over Calcutta gang rape
2 January 2014 Last updated at 02:17 ET
Media are reflecting the growing anger in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta over the gang-rape of a teenager.
The 16-year-old girl was raped by a group of men on 26 October and again the next day when she was returning from a police station after filing a complaint, reports said.
The girl set herself on fire on 23 December and succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday, media reports said.
But her father has alleged that she did not kill herself and was instead set ablaze by her rapists.
"The city was rudely shocked after it came to light that the victim told the police on 27 December that a group of criminals set her ablaze and she did not try to commit suicide," the Hindustan Times reports.
Papers said that people of Calcutta were outraged when police allegedly tried to stop the victim's father from organising a condolence meeting before cremating her body.
"Police were in such a hurry to cremate her before daybreak that they landed up at the house of the bereaved family - with the body - at 02:30am [21:00GMT] and threatened to break down their door unless they were given the death certificate that would allow cremation," The Times of Indiareported.
The police "hijacked the body while it was on its way from her home to the mortuary where it was to be kept for the night", reported the NDTV website.
The police apparently wanted to prevent trade unions from taking the body for cremation and use the occasion to protest against the growing cases of violence against women in Calcutta, the report adds.
The website further adds that "the battle for the body raged for three hours at the crematorium till the police suddenly gave in. Clearly, it was on instructions from higher ups".
The incident has sparked outrage in Calcutta.
"The unexplained haste and utter disregard for family sentiments by the administration triggered widespread protests in the city," The Times of India says.
The police, however, deny these allegations and say they wanted to prevent any "law-and-order problem" in the city, the paper adds.
The incident comes a year after the brutal gang rape of a student in Delhi that triggered huge protests across the country.
Cold wave
In another tragic news, at least two homeless people have died in Delhi from cold.
Following the deaths, the new Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has announced that 45 more "night shelters" will be set up for the homeless in the capital, the Hindustan Times reports.
Staying with the AAP, V Balakrishnan, a former board-member of software giant Infosys, has joined the party, reports say.
"I would like to be a part of the revolution happening in the country," theFirstpost website quotes him as saying.
Led by former civil servant Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP was born out of a strong anti-corruption movement that swept India two years ago.
Meanwhile, President Pranab Mukherjee has signed the Lokpal (Ombudsman) Bill and it has officially become a law, The Hindu reports.
The bill, passed by the parliament in December, empowers an independent ombudsman to prosecute politicians and civil servants for corruption.
And finally, three new tiger cubs have been spotted in the Ranthambore tiger reserve in Rajasthan, the Deccan Herald reports.
"It was only after we took a picture of the tigress with her cubs that we were able to confirm the birth," the paper quotes a park official as saying.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
