New Delhi:
Six weeks after a 20-year-old college student was gang-raped and murdered at Kamduni village in West Bengal, her family, friends and neighbours today met President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi to demand a CBI probe into the brutal crime.
President Pranab Mukherjee spent 40 minutes with the villagers, assuring them he would try his best to speak to the Mamata Bannerjee government in Bengal and the Centre. He also said that he will look into their demand for a CBI enquiry in the case.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal government has issued a showcause notice to the girl's school teacher Pradip Mukerjee for taking some students on a protest march. He is among the people who have led the agitation in this case over the past month.
"I am not a political person. I am fighting here for a just cause. I will reply to them through my parent body," Mr Mukherjee said.
Slamming the state government for the issuing the notice, activist Kavita Krishnan said, "Instead of lauding him, instead of being proud of people like him, the government is all out to harass him, and it is very shameful that in every rape case in West Bengal, this is the default setting of the Mamata Banerjee government."
The villagers have been angry at the state government ever since Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's visit. Ms Banerjee had visited the girl's family ten days after the crime. However, she was angered by slogan-shouting villagers demanding quick justice. She snapped at some women who ran behind her asking to speak to her, and called the villagers CPM cadres and Maoists.
"She (Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee) had promised justice in one month. One month is over, an incomplete chargesheet was submitted, we have no faith in the CID anymore," Mausami Kayal, one of protesters, had said before meeting with the President.
Adding salt to their wounds was the chargesheet filed by the CID which was found to be full of glaring discrepancies. While seven people were accused of gang-rape, only one person was named in the attached case diary as having committed the crime. The judge had then ordered for a revised chargesheet to be filed.