The West Bengal Police suspended four of its personnel for alleged inaction and initiated departmental action against them following an incident wherein two tribal women were allegedly stripped and assaulted over suspicion of stealing from a shop in the Bamangola area of Malda district on July 18. The officials facing action are Bamangola police station inspector-in-charge Jaideep Chakraborty, Nalagola police post officer in-charge Mrinal Sarkar, Pakuahat police post officer in-charge Rakesh Biswas and assistant sub-inspector Sanjay Sarkar. It was alleged that local traders caught the two women, stripped and beat them up after they stole money from the shop and tried to escape. Five people were arrested in this connection. A case was also registered against the two women who too were arrested by the local police, it is learnt. The victims alleged that the police not only stood as bystanders at the time of the assault but also slapped a false case against them of vandalism of the Nalagola police post that actually took place during a BJP agitation a day before. The two women were granted bail on July 24. The West Bengal Commission for Women has also sent a report to the police seeking details of the case. Soon after a video of the incident surfaced, state Minister for Women and Child Health Shashi Panja had claimed that the BJP was unnecessarily politicising the incident. “The Malda incident was a case of theft, where the two women tried to steal something from a local market. In that process, a group of women made an attempt to take law & order in their hands. A case has been registered and the police are investigating the matter,” she had said.
