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Twist in Bengal's Sandeshkhali case as woman withdraws rape charges against TMC men: ‘Never forced to…’
The woman lodged a fresh complaint at Sandeshkhali police station, citing threats resulting from her decision to withdraw the purportedly false rape allegation.
One of the three women from Sandeshkhali, whose rape complaints against Trinamool Congress leaders had stirred unrest in this rural block of Bengal's North 24 Parganas district, made a U-turn on Wednesday. The woman claimed she hadn't been assaulted and accused local Bharatiya Janata Party members of coercing her into signing a blank paper and complaining to the police, The Times of India reported.
The woman lodged a fresh complaint at Sandeshkhali police station, citing threats and social ostracism resulting from her decision to withdraw the purportedly false rape allegation, it added.
The woman has alleged that a local BJP Mahila Morcha functionary and other party members visited her home and asked her to sign what was to be a fictitious complaint.
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"They asked for my signature on the pretext of enlisting my name for PMAY. Later, they took me to the police station to lodge a complaint of sexual abuse. There was no sexual assault on me inside the Trinamool office. I was never forced to go to the party office late at night," ToI quoted the woman as saying.
Shashi Panja, Bengal minister for women and child development and social welfare, alleged that the women who had gone to withdraw their false allegation of rape had been threatened with dire consequences by the local BJP leaders. “BJP had orchestrated the drama and now they are threatening the women, who had gone to withdraw false complaints,” she said.
She said the TMC is keeping a tab on the situation.
TMC MP Sagarika Ghosh said, “It is disgusting that the BJP is threatening the women of Sandeshkhali who have told the truth about the manner in which they were forced to file fraudulent rape complaints. After the viral video showing the conspiracy of Sandeshkali came out, some women have now said that they had been pressurized to file false cases.”
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress will lodge a complaint with the Election Commission against BJP's Suvendu Adhikari and others, claiming that a saffron party leader has “confessed” on camera that the rape accusations in the Sandeshkhali incident were concocted, unnamed sources told news agency PTI on Thursday.
The TMC will submit a letter to the EC later in the day, they said. The party sources said their complaint is based on a purported video in which a man claiming to be Gangadhar Kayal – BJP mandal president in Sandeshkhali – was heard saying that Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of opposition in the West Bengal assembly, was “behind the whole conspiracy”.
In the “sting operation” video done by a news platform which the TMC later shared on X, Gangadhar Kayal is heard saying sexual harassment complaints were filed at the behest of Adhikari.
West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar, meanwhile, alleged that the "sting operation" was "fake", and suspected that it was made using artificial intelligence (AI).
