Author: Main Uddin Chisti
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: March 12, 2003
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030312/asp/bengal/story_1759329.asp
In what appeared to be the first
signs of a rift in the ruling Left Front over the Chheramari gangrape,
agriculture minister Kamal Guha today slammed Anil Biswas for casting aspersion
on the victim, saying the CPM state secretary's remarks would "encourage
the hoodlums".
Addressing a news conference, the
Forward Bloc leader said he would go to Chheramari tomorrow and meet the
28-year-old housewife, who lodged a police complaint accusing nine local
CPM workers of raping her at her Chheramari home in the early hours of
February 22.
The SUCI has called a 12-hour strike,
backed by all Opposition parties, in the Ghoksadanga police station area
tomorrow. Chheramari comes under the police station, blamed for refusing
to accept the victim's complaint initially.
The Bloc leader hailed the SUCI
for "always calling strikes at the right time". He said if he "found" that
the gangrape had taken place, he would take it up with chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee.
The CPM's Cooch Behar committee
today changed the tune, saying the guilty must be punished. The party also
sent a team of women leaders, apparently on a fact-finding mission, to
meet the victim today. Another women's team also met the victim's parents
at Paradubi village.
After defending the accused stridently
over the past few days, CPM district secretary Chandi Pal said today: "We
have asked the superintendent of police to find out the truth. The guilty,
if proved, must be punished."
His remarks, made at a news conference,
came after Samiruddin Mian, a CPM local committee member and one of the
main accused, turned himself in at the subdivisional judicial magistrate's
court yesterday.
Pal, however, criticised the Opposition
for "trying to make a political issue out of a non- political incident".
Referring to Biswas' remarks questioning
the chastity of the victim, Guha said it was "unacceptable that a woman
with questionable character can be raped". "It was not the right thing
for Anil Biswas to say. It would only encourage the hoodlums," the Forward
Bloc minister said.
In the Assembly, the Trinamul Congress
kept up its protests against the gangrape even today, demanding that the
culprits be punished. Some Congress legislators also joined them.
"It's appaling that a CPM leader
and his party workers have raped a woman who belonged to the same party.
It shows how criminals have invaded the ruling party," Opposition leader
Pankaj Banerjee of the Trinamul Congress said, adding that the party had
already handed a memorandum to the chief minister demanding arrest of the
culprits.
Banerjee held aloft a purported
copy of the victim's medical report in the House. "It clearly says that
the victim was physically and sexually harassed or in other words raped."