Deaf and speech impaired minor gang-raped in Bengal

Oct 30, 2013

KOLKATA: A deaf and speech-impaired minor girl was allegedly gang-raped in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, police said on Wednesday. The incident happened late on Tuesday in Baduria in the district when the victim, 16, while attending a marriage ceremony, was forcibly picked up by a group of men who took turns to rape her. “We have arrested four people in this regard,” a police officer said. Earlier, another 16 year-old-girl was allegedly gang-raped in Madhyamgram in the district Friday. Two people have been arrested. The West Bengal Human Rights Commission has ordered a probe by a senior police officer in the Friday’s case. Incidentally, both cases have happened not far from Kamduni, which made headlines for the gruesome gang rape and murder of a college student June 7. Reacting to the rising crimes against women in the state, leader of opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) accused the Mamata Banerjee government of being unable to maintain law and order. “Not a single day passes when there isn’t a case of rape. Even today we heard that a deaf and speech-impaired girl has been gang-raped. I want to ask this government when the women of the state will be able to live in peace and security,” Mishra told media persons here. Mishra also accused the ruling Trinamool Congress of harbouring and encouraging criminals and quoted National Crime Records Bureau to claim that crime against women in the state has multiplied rapidly under the new regime.