BJP claims two tribal women stripped naked, tortured in Bengal’s Malda, TMC reacts

Amid outrage over a viral video showing women being paraded naked by a mob in strife-torn Manipur, the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged on Saturday that two tribal women were stripped naked and tortured a few days ago in West Bengal’s Malda while police remained a “mute spectator”.

BJP I-T cell head Amit Malviya, who is also the party’s co-incharge for West Bengal, said the incident took place in Malda on July 19, with a “frenzied mob baying for her blood”.

He also posted a video with blurred images of the crime.

“It had all the making of a tragedy that should have ‘broken’ Mamata Banerjee’s heart and she, instead of merely outraging, could have acted, since she is also the home minister of Bengal,” he tweeted, targeting chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been strident in criticising the Manipur incident.

The BJP has been criticising Banerjee for sporadic incidents of violence during the recently conducted West Bengal panchayat election.

With opposition parties targeting the BJP over the incident of two women being paraded naked in ethnic violence-hit Manipur, where it is in power, the party has been highlighting similar cases of atrocities against women in states ruled by its rivals such as the Congress and the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.

Hitting out at Banerjee, Malviya said she chose to do nothing in the case. “Neither did she condemn the barbarity nor did she express pain and anguish because it would have exposed her own failing as a chief minister,” he said.

But a day after, she shed copious tears and screamed blue murder because it was politically expedient, Malviya said in reaction to her attack on the BJP over the Manipur incident which sparked a nationwide outrage after a May 4 video of it went viral.

Malviya said, “The horror continues in West Bengal. Two tribal women were stripped naked, tortured and beaten mercilessly, while police remained a mute spectator in Pakua Hat area of Bamangola Police Station, Malda.”

Union minister Smriti Irani also reacted to the Malda incident. “This (Manipur viral video) issue is not only sensitive but has implications with regard to national security and is known to the opposition leaders. However, the Opposition did not want to discuss the issue on the floor of the Parliament. What is extremely alarming is that yesterday, from the state of Rajasthan, a minister spoke up on crime against women in the state, he was unceremoniously dismissed by the Congress. Equally shocking is a video that is emanating from West Bengal’s Malda where two Dalit women are being beaten and stripped. The Congress did not want to hear the truth about atrocities against women in the state of Rajasthan… The Congress is a mute spectator to the killings of people during the West Bengal Panchayat elections all because it is hungry for collaboration with TMC,” she told reporters in Mumbai.

Stating that “there is absolutely no need to politicise the Malda incident”, West Bengal minister and Trinamool Congress leader Shashi Panja claimed that it was a case of theft, where the two ladies tried to steal something from the market.

“A group of women tried to take law and order into their hands and started beating them. However, the police reached the spot. A case has been registered & police are investigating the matter,” Panja said at a press briefing.