KOLKATA: After being on the backfoot for months after the women of Sandeshkhali rose in protest against atrocities committed on them by Trinamool Congress leaders, the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government and party are pulling out all stops to contain the damage. At the forefront of this drive is the West Bengal police.
Shifting into attack mode, the Trinamool Congress, through its social media team, has made a series of videos viral. These videos ostensibly show admissions by BJP workers that the Sandeshkhali protests were planned and funded by BJP leaders led by the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari.
However, questions are being raised about the authenticity of the videos, especially if the videos have been edited in a manner to show the Sandeshkhali protests as fake and politically inspired.
Citing the videos, all Trinamool leaders, including party supremo Mamata Banerjee and second in command Abhishek Banerjee, have started aggressively blaming the BJP for the Sandeshkhali issue.
The TMC is claiming that nothing happened in Sandeshkhali and hundreds of village women who rose up in protest, were making fake allegations against TMC leader Shahjahan Sheikh and his men.
The first video is 32 minutes 42 seconds long, where BJP’s mandal president in Sandeshkhali, Gangadhar Kayal, is heard saying that a “false” complaint of rape was filed in Sandeshkhali for money and that TMC leaders were jailed for the planned manipulation.
In the second video, one of the “survivors” was seen telling a reporter that BJP members made her sign a blank sheet of paper without disclosing what it was for. She denied facing sexual assault or visiting a police station to lodge a complaint. She alleged that local BJP leader Piyali Das alias Mampi was behind it. She complained of threats and a social boycott because of her decision to withdraw the allegedly false charge of rape.
The other “survivor who came clean” is seen in the video telling reporters a local BJP Mahila Morcha member identified as Piyali, aka Mampi Das, took her and some others to meet a team from National Commission for Women.
In the third video, BJP’s Basirhat candidate Rekha Patra herself expressed doubts about the identity of the women who met President Droupadi Murmu claiming to be Sandeshkhali’s rape victims. She and her companions are seen claiming that these “unknown women” had been set up by Anup Das, a local BJP supporter who, they alleged, was in the payroll of Sheikh Shahjahan’s aide Shibu Hazra.
Soon after the TMC made the videos viral, the women of Sandeshkhali started complaining that they were being forced by the TMC workers to go to the police station and file complaints against BJP leaders for allegedly forcing them to make false allegations of rape.
On May 7, an FIR against BJP worker Mampi Das, also known as Piyali Das, was drawn up at Sandeshkhali police station under several charges, including trespass, wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and insulting the modesty of a woman. All these were bailable charges.
Two days later, Sandeshkhali police issued notice to Das under Section 41A of the CrPC asking her to report to the local police station within three days.
However, she was arrested under Section 195A for allegedly coercing a woman to lodge a false rape complaint and sent to custody for eight days.
Her lawyer Rajdeep Majumdar said the police notice did not mention this non-bailable section and alleged it was added on May 9. Mampi Das decided to move the Calcutta High Court challenging the lower court’s order of her judicial custody.
On Friday, Das was granted bail by Calcutta High Court. Justice Jay Sengupta granted unconditional bail to Mampi and quashed a non-bailable charge against her, saying it was not tenable.
Directing the state authorities to immediately release Mampi from the correctional home, Justice Sengupta wondered who was the mastermind behind the police action of adding the non-bailable Section 195(A) of the IPC against Mampi.
The superintendent of Basirhat police would oversee the probe against Mampi on a slew of other charges against her and the final report would be submitted only after the court’s permission, he ordered. These developments occurred three days after a sub-divisional court in Basirhat remanded Mampi to judicial custody.
Another complaint was lodged at the police station against BJP candidate Rekha Patra and Gangadhar Koyal.
“Mampi Das will continue to be with the oppressed Sandeshkhali women, and so will the BJP. But how many times will the state police be pulled up for acting on behalf of the ruling party? The way the police have been toeing the Trinamool line is deplorable,” said BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.
It goes without saying that Trinamool leaders are denying any meddling. “The BJP has nothing else to talk about other than alleging bias against the police in Bengal for almost anything. The party will respect the High Court order,” said Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.