West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that her government and Kolkata police have been unjustifiably targeted in the aftermath of a brutal rape and killing of a doctor at RG Kar Hospital. Challenged, she brought attention to other States’ similar shocks – the gang rape of a Dalit woman in Hathras in 2020 and a recent child rape in Jaipur.
Bengal will ensure justice, Banerjee said, picking on Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, claiming the states had the highest incidence of crimes against women. She demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah resign and the chief ministers of those states who had failed to implement proper legislation for women’s safety.
The Trinamool Congress came up with a draft private member’s bill known as the Aparajita Bill, which proposes the categorization of rape as an offense similar to murder and attracts the death penalty or life imprisonment. By using social media, Banerjee criticized the new criminal laws adopted by the central government saying that the laws were enacted without the consent of any stakeholder.
SuvendU Adhikari voiced his concern against the bill and accused the BJP of rushing through it soon after Band—e—Amrikan’s address in LoC. The CBI is investigating the case pursuant to an order of the Calcutta High Court, subsequent to which several arrests have been made, including Dr Sandip Ghosh, the erstwhile Principal of RG Kar Medical College & Hospital.
