Author: Our Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: May 25, 2003
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030525/asp/bengal/story_2003288.asp
Three days after a tribal woman
was raped allegedly for not voting for the CPM in the panchayat polls,
a complaint was lodged with the police today. But it was only after the
victim approached the additional district magistrate and submitted a memorandum
to him that an FIR was lodged.
When the victim, along with BJP
activists, went to the police station this morning to lodge an FIR against
Zakir Hussain - brother of Manurul Islam, the newly-elected CPM panchayat
member - and Sheikh Kibria, police reportedly refused to accept a complaint.
"The police here made our supporters
sit from 8 am to 5 pm without taking the complaint and constantly urged
them to mutually settle their grievances. It was after we approached the
additional district magistrate and handed over a memorandum to him that
the police took in the FIR and sent the victim for a medical examination
to the Bidhannagar hospital in Durgapur," district BJP president Naresh
Konar said.
Burdwan superintendent of police
B.N. Ramesh, however, said he was not aware of the incident. None of the
two accused have been arrested yet.
Sitting at the CPM office here,
the party's Galsi zonal committee member Pratul Chandra Roy said the gram
panchayat was held by the Opposition till the present elections. "Whoever
is linked with this incident should be booked and punished, there is no
question of pardon, whatever their political affiliation," Roy said. He
denied that the accused were CPM members.
At the hospital, the victim said
that local CPM leaders had been threatening the tribals to vote for them
or face the consequences.
"Hussain told me to vote for his
brother and last Tuesday night, both he and Kibria forced themselves on
me. Later, when my people protested, the CPM leaders told me to remain
silent as it would tarnish my reputation and my husband, who worked in
Hussain's rice mill, would lose his job," the victim alleged.
"We have been BJP supporters, all
the 20 tribal families in the village. On Tuesday night, Hussain told me
to go to the rice mill and work, then he and the other man forcibly entered
our mud hut and raped my wife. When she raised an alarm they fled," the
victim's husband, Kamal Hansda, said.
Another village tribal, Sambhu Murmu,
alleged that after the incident, local CPM leader Sheikh Siraj urged them
not to go to the police. "There were repeated sittings at the village-level
and even the officer-in-charge of the police station, Nazrul Islam, was
present, but the offenders were not present on any occasion. The leaders
then told us to do whatever we felt like," Murmu added.
The local BJP leadership has vowed
to launch a movement to protest against the incident. State BJP president
Tathagata Roy said a three-member team will visit the village tomorrow.
