ENOUGH.
2 school girls were gangraped and murdered in NADIA and BARASAT , West Bengal, in the past week.
Response from our elected state government = SILENCE
This morning, members of Maitree organised a peaceful protest near the chief minister's house. They wanted to meet the chief minister and hand over a letter of demands. Instead of The police arrested them and they were taken to Lal Bazaar Station.
Message from Maitree:
Condemn the Silence and Indifference of West Bengal
government and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over rising violence on women
Condemn the arrest of Maitree members protesting
against violence on women
On 13 June, in the morning, Maitree members gathered near Kalighat, to try and
meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and hand over to her a letter
of protest. Maitree had felt compelled to adopt this course on the 12th, as the
news of the rape and murder of a school student in Nadia came hard on the heels
of the whole Barasat episode – where a college student had been brutally gang
raped and murdered, where some of the accused had TMC links, where the police
had acted only after tremendous pressure from local people, and where the
government, through a minister, had offered “compensation” to the family of the
woman, while the Chief Minister had refused to meet civil society activists at
Writers Buildings.
The totally peaceful gathering, modest in size, was told by the police to
disperse. When they wanted to hand over a protest letter to the CM, they were
told to hand over the letter to the police. On their rejection of this offer,
on the ground that it was the CM who was the elected representative and the
head of the government, thirteen of them were arrested and dragged into waiting
vans which took them over to the Lal Bazar Central Lock-up.
It should be noted that from the rape of a speech and hearing impaired woman
back in the 1990s to the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik during the Singur
agitation, Mamata Banerjee’s rise to power has been connected to using cases of
violence on women as major campaign issues. It is therefore particularly
offensive, that once in power, she has chosen to act the way she does –
sometimes accusing the victims of being liars and conspirators, sometimes
silencing and suppressing civil society protests.
Maitree has demanded:
1. Immediate action against those who carry out violence against women
2. Ensuring that women have security and the right to work, study, get involved
in all kinds of activities including leisure without any harassment and
infringement on their mobility across West Bengal
3. Ensure that Barasat, which has become a particular trouble spot, where women
are regularly sexually attacked, raped, etc, is freed of the criminal elements
4. Break up the illicit liquor dens in Barasat and end their connections with
political parties
We urge everyone to also demand the immediate release of everyone arrested, and
also to demand that the West Bengal government must accept the right of all,
regardless of their political positions, to protest peacefully and
democratically on issues they think are important.
Maitree
13 June 2013
Condemn the arrest of Maitree members protesting against violence on women
Please call the following numbers.
Home Secretary West Bengal 033-22145656
Kolkata Police Commissioner 033-22145060
Officer-in-Charge Lalbazar thana Kolkata 033-2250-5000 (PABX)
Chairperson State Women's Commission (Sunanda Mukherji)
0983053285
