Bengal rape-murder: Accused son of TMC leader, 14-yr-old girl’s family says too poor to complain

A week later, as the Opposition raised questions about the hurried cremation and police inaction, two arrests were made, including of Braja Gopal. Hours later, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee raised doubts over what had happened, asking whether the 14-year-old had been raped or was having an affair and got pregnant, nodding for confirmation from the DGP who shared the stage with her. On Tuesday, a police officer in Nadia told The Indian Express that they were probing the role of the accused, but “involvement doesn’t always mean penetration”.

The enormity of what he is up against lies heavy on the 50-year-old, who refuses to talk about Banerjee’s statement regarding the youngest of his three daughters. On Tuesday, he stayed silent through TMC MP Mahua Moitra’s visit. The neighbours block all queries claiming they were not at home on the said day.

The 14-year-old was in Class 9. Braja Gopal, 21, the son of TMC panchayat member Samarendra Gayali, was in the same school as her. They reportedly became friends around six months ago.

The father says he did not know of the birthday party that day. The 14-year-old left home on her cycle around 4 pm, promising her mother to return early. Around 7.30 pm, a woman dropped her back, on her own cycle. She was bleeding.

The mother says she gave her lemon water, thinking the bleeding was on account of periods, and that the 14-year-old went to sleep. However, her condition deteriorated, and around 4 am, the mother arrived in panic at the house of a local quack, Samir Biswas, seeking medicines to help her. She died soon after.

The father says when the 14-year-old left for the birthday party, he was away at work. “The woman who dropped her back said they had found her by the side of the road. When I returned home, I found her in bed. Her mother didn’t say anything. Later, she told me the girl wasn’t feeling well… After her death, I don’t remember anything,” he says, adding that he acted mechanically. “I was under a lot of pressure. They (the villagers) told me to cremate, I did.”

On why they filed a complaint only on April 10 and did not take the girl to a hospital, the 50-year-old says: “We are poor people.”

While Braja Gopal was arrested on Monday, after “prolonged interrogation”, his friend Prabhakar Poddar (20) was held on Tuesday.

Additional SP, Ranaghat, Rupantar Sengupta, told The Indian Express: “Primarily we suspect the involvement of more than one person. Involvement doesn’t always mean penetration. Gang rape section has been imposed.”

Sengupta also said that while they were looking at how the body was cremated without a death certificate, “primarily, villagers have said that this is routine”.

The accused have been booked under IPC Sections 376 D (gang rape), 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 34 (acts by several persons in furtherance of common intention) as well as the POCSO Act.

Biswas, to whom the girl’s mother turned to for help in the early hours of April 5, says the woman told him her daughter was having her periods and was in pain. “I gave some medicines for abdominal discomfort. After sometime someone called me to say the girl had died. This was within an hour of her mother visiting me. I rushed to her house, but on reaching there, found there was no body and none of them was in the house.”

Biswas also claims that he didn’t see the 14-year-old, and that had he known her “real condition”, “I might have referred her to a hospital”.

Police are deployed at the spot of the alleged crime – a temporary structure of asbestos and corrugated aluminium, holding a couple of dusty rooms. “A forensic team will visit the place and take samples. We have recovered the victim’s dress, questioned the quack, her parents, the woman who had dropped her and a few others,” a police officer said.

While most villagers refuse to talk about the incident, Sikha Rani Gayali, a relative of Samarendra Gayali, says Braja Gopal was a known trouble maker. “His parents don’t stay here and he came to the village with friends once in a while. That evening I saw the girl passing by. Later I heard she was gangraped and had died. I have given my statement to police as well.”

On Gayali, she says everyone knew him as a strongman. “During the last panchayat polls, he not only beat my son but also threatened me.” A police officer said Braja Gopal was a BA student and owned a two-wheeler show room.

A classmate and neighbour of the 14-year-old says she was not “overfriendly” with people. “He (the accused) is in college but an ex-student of our school. I had seen them talking before. I also saw her leave that day for the birthday party. The next day I heard she was dead.”

The caretaker of the cremation ground, Karuna Bawali, says villagers who come to them rarely have death certificates. “No one shows any documents before a cremation. They pay us as per what they want,” she says, adding that she wasn’t present when the 14-year-old was cremated. “When I came, the body was half-burnt already.”

Moitra told reporters that she had no words for what the parents had gone through. In what appeared to be damage control after Banerjee’s statement, the TMC MP added: “I have assured the family that the full extent of the law would be implemented to bring the perpetrators to justice. The boy is an adult and if he had a sexual relationship with a minor, that is rape as per the law and he will be prosecuted accordingly.”

The BJP delegation was led by Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who called the incident “a shame for Bengal and Bengalis”. “More embarrassing is the statement of the CM,” he said.

West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who visited the village in the evening, also slammed the CM. “Despite being a woman, she is giving such statements. She is trying to divert public attention and save the culprits.”

West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairperson Ananya Chakraborty also visited the village and assured action against the culprits.

Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar asked the Chief Secretary and DGP to brief him on the case by Wednesday evening. He tweeted that the investigation was “tainted & compromised” given the stand taken by “people in authority & constitutional position”.

The father says he wants capital punishment for the accused. “I want to see how strong is our law. I want to see them hanged till death.”