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BJP questions whether Nadia gang-rape victim was alive when she was ‘cremated’
The girl’s family had alleged she was gang-raped on April 4 and hurriedly cremated by the accused persons without a post-mortem and a death certificate.
A fact-finding team, set up by Bharatiya Janata Party’s president JP Nadda, which visited the house of the 14-year-old girl who allegedly died after being gang raped on April 4 at Hanskhali in West Bengal’s Nadia, raised questions over whether the victim was alive when she was ‘cremated’.
“When I asked the victim’s mother if her daughter was alive, when she was taken away to the cremation site by the accused persons, she collapsed,” Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, BJP MLA from English Bazar in Malda district and a member of the fact-finding team, told the media after speaking with the victim’s mother.
The girl’s family had alleged she was gang-raped on April 4 and hurriedly cremated by the accused persons without a post-mortem and a death certificate.
A police officer said that the victim, before being ‘cremated’ by the accused, was not checked by any doctor, there was no post mortem and no death certificate was issued. She was cremated in an unauthorized crematorium.
“Who has confirmed that she had died before being cremated? She wasn’t checked by any medical practitioner. There is no death certificate. No post mortem was done. Then how can we say that she died before being cremated,” said the police officer.
Even the village’s 85-year-old priest Biswanath Chakraborty had backed out from performing the rituals on Thursday morning as there was uncertainty over the time and nature of death.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the case on the orders of the Calcutta high court, and experts from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), visited the spot where the victim was cremated to collect samples.
A police officer said that the victim was cremated in an unauthorized crematorium in the village. No cremation had taken place in the last one year there. None was cremated after the victim was cremated.
Forensic officials also went to the house of the Brajagopal Gayali and Prabhakar Poddar, both of whom have been arrested earlier, to collect samples. While Brajagopal is the son of Trinamool Congress (TMC) panchayat member, Prabhakar is Brajagopal’s friend.
The BJP had on Wednesday formed a five-member fact-finding team comprising Member of Parliament Rekha Verma and Uttar Pradesh minister Baby Rani Maurya among others. The team is expected to submit its report to Nadda on Saturday. Maurya, however, didn’t go.
“The victim was bleeding profusely and writhing in pain throughout the night. Her parents could not call the doctor or inform the police, as their entire house was surrounded and the family was being threatened. Later the victim was wrapped in a mat and taken away, while her father ran after them. She was cremated,” said Chaudhury.
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh has already slammed the BJP team saying the CBI is probing the matter and questioned the need for BJP’s fact-finding team. “It seems the BJP has no faith in CBI because the truth may come out if a fair probe is done. The fact-finding team actually wants to influence the investigation. What the BJP is doing is plain politics, crude and disgraceful,” Ghosh had earlier said.
The BJP earlier sent another fact-finding team to Bengal to look into the massacre of nine people following a TMC panchayat leader’s murder in Birbhum on March 21. The report named another TMC leader.
Banerjee rejected the report, which was submitted to Nadda, on Birbhum violence saying it will influence the CBI probe into the massacre and derail it. Nine people died in an arson attack in Birbhum in the aftermath of the murder.
TMC has repeatedly accused the BJP-led Centre of interferences in Bengal and misusing central agencies against the state government.
