24.1.14

A Shocker in West Bengal!

Cops in Bengal’s Birbhum district on Thursday arrested 14 men, including a village headman who had ordered the gang-rape of a 20-year-old tribal woman for alleged sexual relations with a man from outside her community. As tempers flared and another anti-Mamata wave over rising gender crime swelled, the chief minister replaced district police chief C Sudhakar with Darjeeling SP S N Gupta.
Even as the administration claimed it had acted promptly , more details emerged. Villagers said on Thursday that after the kangaroo court ordered her to be sexually savaged, the woman was placed on a raised bamboo platform so that the rape was viewed by the entire village, children included.
“If the family does not pay up, go and enjoy yourselves,” is what headman and now prime accused Boloi Murdy allegedly told the men.

Media reports on the brutal gang-rape of a tribal girl on a village headman’s order shook the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognizance of the incident on Friday and order the Birbhum district judge to conduct an on-the-spot inquiry and send a report to the apex court within a week.
In what could send a tough message to the West Bengal government, a bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and M Y Eqbal said it would take up the case on January 31 after getting the report from the district judge.
The incident in Subalpur village in Birbhum district was reported in almost all dailies. The bench headed by Justice Sathasivam took note of the news items and took it on record. In its order, the bench said, “The district judge, Birbhum deistrict, West Bengal, is directed to inspect the concerned place and submit a report to this court within a period of one week from today.”
The CJI-headed bench asked the apex court registry to “communicate this order to the district judge immediately”.

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