Kolkata, Stating that the Hyderabad and Unnao incidents of atrocities against women have touched her heart, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday called for strengthening laws regarding such happenings and said strong action would be taken in the Malda case once the post-mortem report was available.
“An incident has happened in Malda. Let me get the post-mortem report first. Police have already taken up the case,” Banerjee said referring to Union Minister Smriti Irani talking of the incident in the Lok Sabha during the day.
“Our police are not idle. We are not like the BJP government. Whether it is a rape incident or not we can ascertain only after getting the post-mortem report,” she said.
The charred corpse of a young girl was found in a mango orchard in Dhantala area under Englishbazar police station of Malda on Thursday. Police have said there were injures to the victim’s private parts.
“All actions will be taken after receiving the post-mortem report. These incidents same us. There are some border areas, at times such incident happens. We have to take immediate action,” she said.
“At times some incidents happen, which we don’t support. But laws should be strengthened,” she said.
Banerjee said after her government came to power in the state, it created a record by submitting charge sheet in a rape case of South Dinajpur district in the fast track court in three days.
She said police have been given standing instructions to file the charge sheet within 10 days and warned of action if it was not done.
“If such incidents happen, we will give charge sheet immediately. I have given standing instruction to the police that whenever such incident happens, you must arrest the accused immediately, get all papers and file charge sheet between three to 10 days.
“This should be seen as an emergency. Any police officer who doesn’t do it, will face action. We have to deal with such cases strongly,” she said.
Iterating that she never tolerated atrocities on women, the Chief Minister said the incidents at Hyderabad and Unnao have “touched my heart”.
“I normally don’t comment on issues concerning other states. With regard to the Unnao victim, everybody knew her case was on. It was a sensitive case. Despite that there were attempts to burn her to death.
“She ran a kilometre for help with 90 per cent burns, but no one helped her. This has saddened me,” she said.
The gruesome gang-rape and murder of a young veterinarian in Hyderabad and the setting ablaze of a rape survivor in Unnao have sparked outrage across the nation.
Ten days after the Hyderabad incident, the police on Friday shot dead all the four accused in an alleged exchange of fire near Shadnagar town in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district.