Mamata's governance: West Bengal women helpless

Police find evidence of another rape and murder in West Bengal

By Ajanta Chakraborty, TNN | Dec 31, 2012, 09.54 PM IST

KOLKATA: Less than 24 hours after a woman's dead body was found after allegedly being raped, another woman's body, barely clothed, was recovered from a deserted locale of Panchagram village near Basuldanga railway station in the same sub-division. Police appeared determined to treat it as it murder case and not quite keen to investigate whether the woman was raped.

The woman appeared to be 25 or 26 years, police said. She had signs of injury on the back of her head. Her clothes were in tatters, making villagers suspect that she had been raped and then killed. Local Trinamool Congress leader Nurul Islam echoed the police in suggesting that the woman was murdered and there wasn't much more to it.

"The woman is not a local villager. It is clear that some outsiders had murdered her and dumped her away from the place of crime," he told TOI.

Only on Saturday, around the time a post-mortem was being conducted on Nirbhaya, the alleged rape-murder of the sister of Manas Purkayat had caused a lot of tension in the area and Rapid Action Force (RAF) had to be called in. The recovery of another woman's body in a similar situation added anguish among the villagers.

Giasuddin Gharami, a daily labourer, was returning home after work around 1 pm when he spotted a pair of legs covered with bushes. He alerted fellow villagers and they dragged the body out and found a dupatta tied around the neck of the woman. Her clothes were torn.

Police was called in and took the body to Diamond Harbour police station morgue. Officials said even hours after the body was found, they had no clue about the identity of the woman. "With no trace of her identity, it is difficult to get on with proper investigation," said a policeman. They have sent wireless messages to all nearby police stations to alert them on any complaint related to a missing woman.

"Without knowing her identity and without the post-mortem results, it is impossible to guess whether it was a murder after rape or what was the motive behind the crime," said an official.

But villagers were not buying the logic. They demonstrated before the police and demanded immediate action because of similar incidents in a spate of 24 hours.