Mamata Banerjee seems haunted by the ghost of Bangladesh.
After scuttling the Teesta River water sharing accord between Delhi and Dhaka, Banerjee is now raising the bogey of infiltration from across the border and blaming the recent spurt of crimes against women on illegal migrants.
On Monday, she was hemmed in by a group of angry women near Kamduni village near Barasat on the outskirts of Kolkata after Banerjee reached the house of a college girl raped and murdered last week.
What was destined to be an usual ‘Didi balm’ to cool frayed tempers turned out to be a public relations disaster for the maverick Chief Minister.
The women wailed and shouted at the Chief Minister, saying they wanted no financial compensation but exemplary punishment for the rapists.
Banerjee’s government is snowed under rising criticism after National Crimes Record Bureau said in its 2012 report that West Bengal topped the list of Indian states for crimes against women.
According to the NCRB report, 30,942 cases of crime against women were reported in the state in 2012, which is 12.67 percent of the total crime committed against women in the country.
The state capital Kolkata, according to the NCRB statistics, ranked third behind Delhi and Bangalore in the chart of most unsafe metropolis for women.
As the women chased down the Chief Minister for a good 2 kms after she left the victim’s house in a huff, she turned to them and blamed them as CPI(M) supporters.
“Kono rajniti korben na, apnara sob CPI(M)” (no politics, you are all CPI(M)), she shouted at the top of her voice.
But immediately after smelling a ‘Marxist conspiracy’ as responsible for her predicament, she turned to her aides, former Railway Minister Mukul Roy and Bengal’s Food Minister Jyotipriya Mullick.
“People crossing over from Bangladesh are committing these crimes. I must speak to the BSF. This cannot go on,” she blurted out.
In this particular case of rape and murder in Barasat, all the eight booked are Indian nationals, the prime accused a kin of the local Trinamul leader.
“Neither they are CPI(M) nor Bangladeshis. They are her people,” said an angry CPI(M) MP Mohammed Selim.
True, because Kamduni is part of Kirtipur-2 gram panchayat, where out of the 12 seats, the CPI(M) could file nomination for the forthcoming panchayat polls in only one.
Apart from all accused being Indian nationals, the village Kamduni is a good 45 kms from the nearest border location, Ghojadanga in Basirhat.
Though her one time ally, BJP, has been vocal on the issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh, Banerjee has been silent on it so far.
But like the BJP, she may now start blaming the CPI(M) and the Congress for ‘infiltration from Bangladesh’.
Source:Bd news24
