BJP alleges tribal women's modesty outraged in Bengal, Trinamool denies

Kolkata, July 22 (IANS) BJP's IT cell chief and party co-charge for West Bengal Amit Malviya on Saturday alleged that the modesty of two tribal women was outraged in Malda district recently.

In support of his claims, Malviya uploaded a blurred video of the incident on his official twitter handle this morning. The video depicted two women being physically assaulted by the public on the open streets.

The BJP leader claimed that the incident took place on July 19. “The horror continues in West Bengal. Two tribal women were stripped, tortured and beaten mercilessly, while police remained a mute spectator in Pakua Hat area of Bamangola Police Station, Malda,” his Twitter message read.

Claiming that the horrific incident took place on the morning of July 19, the party’s IT cell chief also asserted that the women belonged to a socially marginalised community and had a frenzied mob baying for their blood.

“It had all the making of a tragedy that should have ‘broken’ Mamata Banerjee’s heart and she, instead of merely outraging, could have acted, since she is also the Home Minister of Bengal,” said the message.

He also accused the chief minister of doing nothing in the matter. “Neither did she condemn the barbarity nor did she express pain and anguish because it would have exposed her own failing as a Chief Minister. But a day after, she shed copious tears and screamed blue murder, because it was politically expedient,” his message read.

Admitting that something of that sort has happened, the state's commerce & industries minister Dr Sashi Panja claimed that BJP was unnecessarily politicizing the Malda matter. “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 said.

On Friday afternoon, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar and party Lok Sabha members told newspersons at New Delhi that at Panchla in Howrah district, a woman was stripped and paraded for fighting as BJP nominee in the rural civic body polls on the panchayat polling day of July 8.

Just hours after that allegations were raised by the BJP leader, in a hurriedly convened press conference Malviya said that following investigation over a complaint filed in this regard, it is evident that no such incident took place at Panchla on the polling day.

A few hours after the DGP’s press conference, Leader of Opposition in the state  Assembly Suvendu Adhikari dismissed the DGP’s statement as “blatant distortion of facts” by posting a Twitter message attaching two videos side by side.

The first video is about Malviya claiming to press persons that no such incident occurred on the polling day and the second video is related to a woman with a blurred face making the same allegations as raised by the state BJP leaders.

In the video, the woman claimed that she was unable to file a police complaint because of the threat that she is receiving from the ruling party activists.