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In Bengal, tribal woman gang-raped over relationship
The woman and the man were allegedly made to face trial at a kangaroo court that asked them to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively, residents said. Instead of paying the money, the woman went to the police and filed a complaint.
A 30-year-old tribal woman, a widow with two children, was allegedly gang-raped in the early hours of August 19 in the Mohammad Bazar area of West Bengal’s Birbhum district because she defied the residents of her village and had a relationship with a man from a non-tribal community.
The woman and the man were allegedly made to face trial at a kangaroo court that asked them to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively, residents said. Instead of paying the money, the woman went to the police and filed a complaint.
“All five men named in the FIR {first information report} have been arrested for rape. We are conducting an investigation into the alleged kangaroo court as well,” Subimal Paul, additional superintendent of police (headquarters), Birbhum district, said on Monday afternoon.
In her police complaint, the woman said that a religious ritual took place in her village on August 18 and on that afternoon she and the man were forcefully locked up inside a community club and beaten up when they were caught together on the road.
Hours later, in the early hours of the next day, five men took her to a desolate place and took turns in raping her, the victim alleged. She and her partner were released on the morning of August 19. In her complaint the woman, however, did not mention the kangaroo court.
Police arrested all the five accused between Friday and Sunday. One of them is an elderly leader of the local tribal community. The Suri court on Sunday remanded them in police custody for a week.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that the incident had once again exposed how unsafe women are in West Bengal.
“There are numerous incidents that the media never comes to know of. In many cases the rape victims are too scared to lodge a complaint. Also, Kangaroo courts are quite common in rural Bengal because the ruling Trinamool Congress encourages its workers to take the law in their hands,” said Bengal BJP general secretary Sayantan Basu.
