Kolkata: Swapna Biswas, a homemaker from Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas, has been personally escorting her daughter to tuition classes daily. Previously, her daughter cycled to the tuition centre, located approximately three kilometres away. For the past three months, however, Swapna has been accompanying her daughter in a local electric rickshaw, known as a toto. She patiently waits outside for two hours before returning home with her daughter. If Swapna is unable to accompany her, her daughter skips tuition altogether.
The added precaution has come with financial strain for the family. “I am the sole breadwinner of the family. We have to spend extra money to take my daughter to tuition because my wife has to go with her. But what else can we do? We can’t risk her safety,” said Shekhar Biswas, who works in a private sector company in Kolkata.
The Biswas family’s decision to accompany their daughter to tuition was triggered by the horrifying incident at R.G. Kar Medical College, which sparked widespread protests against violence against women in West Bengal. However, these protests did little to curb the rising tide of violence.
Between August and November 2023, a staggering 42 cases of molestation, rape, and gang rape were reported across the state. These incidents range from rape and murder to dismemberment and disposal of bodies in rivers.
“This has been happening since ancient times, and it’s not just happening in West Bengal but all over the world. I believe social decay and the brutality of the male patriarchy are the reasons. We still celebrate International Women’s Day because women need protection. And in our country, such incidents are happening everywhere, from Manipur to Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh,” said Chandrima Bhattacharya, minister of state, Health and Family Welfare, West Bengal.
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While police have arrested accused in many cases, there’s widespread anger due to delays in the legal process and alleged attempts to influence victims’ families to withdraw complaints. Political interference is also a major concern, with accusations against local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders of suppressing cases and protecting the accused.
Just days earlier, on last Friday, police arrested a man believed to be a close associate of the ruling TMC from the Bankura Sadar area for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor. The victim’s family revealed that they were offered a substantial sum of money to withdraw the complaint.
“We were offered Rs 10 lakh to not press the charge, but we refused,” said the mother of the child.
Interestingly, the father of the slain doctor of the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital also alleged that senior police officials offered him a monetary settlement even before his daughter’s cremation. Families of victims have reported pressure to withdraw complaints, even after legal procedures like arrests and medical examinations. Public outrage has led to protests demanding justice and the arrest of the accused.
In October, villagers in South 24 Parganas torched a police outpost after a child’s rape and murder, accusing the police of refusing to register a complaint when the child went missing.
The state government and the ruling party have frequently used advertisements and election rallies to boast about Kolkata’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) ranking as India’s safest city for women. However, Opposition parties have disputed this claim.
A recent study published in Hindustan Times by renowned economists Maitreesh Ghatak and Tanika Chakraborty further supports this contention, highlighting a significant reporting bias in official crime statistics related to women’s safety in West Bengal. The authors have shown that the notion that Bengal is a safe place for women, based solely on NCRB data, is misleading.
“While it is difficult to pinpoint the extent of reporting bias, when we compare NFHS [National Family Health Survey] and NCRB data, it suggests a reporting bias in NCRB’s crime against women statistics in West Bengal in the last decade,” said Chakraborty, associate professor of Economics at IIM-Calcutta.
While NFHS data consistently shows West Bengal’s rate of such crimes to be near the national average, NCRB data indicates a sharp decline over time. This suggests that NCRB records in West Bengal may be underreporting crimes against women, and makes it difficult to say that crime against women has declined in West Bengal based solely on the NCRB data.
The NFHS reports on physical violence by individuals other than husbands, which should align with NCRB’s crime against women data. In 2005, Bengal’s per capita incidence of such crimes was similar to the national average in both NFHS and NCRB. However, by 2015, while the NFHS data continued to show Bengal near the national average, the NCRB data indicated a significant decrease. This gap widened further by 2021.
“Now, criminals think that they can get away with such crimes because they have powerful backers, which is a dangerous trend. There is a growing trend of lumpenisation across the country,” said former MP and women rights activist Malini Bhattacharya.
“Those in power support and empower this criminal network to maintain their power. Women are their soft targets. The atrocities against women in the state have crossed all limits. The ruling party is more focused on crime than on development,” echoed Miratun Nahar, women rights activist.
West Bengal government has been lauded at several quarters for its women-centric beneficiary schemes like ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’, ‘Kanyashree’ and ‘Sabuj Sathi’ targeted at empowerment and social inclusion. The flagship ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ scheme provides financial assistance to 2.11 crore women aged 25-60 from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, while Kanyashree, a conditional cash transfer scheme, encourages girls to attend school and delay marriage until the legal age of 18.
Despite these efforts, violence against women has increased substantially in West Bengal. According to the NCRB 2022 report, West Bengal reported the highest number of missing women and girls among all Indian states.
“Government empowerment schemes are cash for benefit and it is obvious that these schemes are introduced on the premise of inequity faced by women. They don’t correct the inequality but take care of the monetary discrimination only,” said Ishita Mukhopadhyay, professor of Economics, University of Calcutta.
“Women politicians in our country, including the chief minister, are known to exhibit patriarchal power harping on power, money and lumpen nexus. So they increase rather than decrease Violence Against Women. The enabling environment for violence against women has been facilitated and has intensified it,” Mukhopadhyay added.
Earlier this year, many women in Sandeshkhali in South 24 Parganas, came forward to expose the sexual terror inflicted upon them by political goons affiliated with the ruling party. While the chief minister termed it a political conspiracy, records suggest that the government ignored early warnings raised long back in 2014. Since 2017, West Bengal’s rape rate has declined by a mere 0.15%, significantly lower than the national average of a 3% decrease, as per NCRB data.
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“During the same period, West Bengal performed much better in handling gender-neutral crimes like murder and was much below the Indian average throughout. If we rank the 31 states for which we have the latest NCRB data (2022) from the best to the worst for rapes per capita, Bengal’s rank is 19 among 31, only before Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh among the major states. In per capita murder it is at 24,” said Chakraborty, associate professor of economics at IIM-Calcutta.
Gender activists have highlighted the low police-to-population ratio in West Bengal as a contributing factor to violence against women. With only 101.13 police personnel per lakh people, the state ranks among the lowest in India, surpassing only Bihar. The state’s civil police force also lacks female officers, with just 9,522 women compared to states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Bihar.
On a per capita basis, West Bengal ranks 35th among 28 states and eight Union Territories, with one female officer serving over 5,000 women. This understaffing and low proportion of women in the police force (9% compared to the national average of 12%) may contribute to police reluctance in filing complaints, as seen in Bankura, or initiating timely investigations, as in the case of the child’s murder in Joynagar.
“Such atrocities were happening even before the R.G. Kar incident. How many crimes have been tried? I am disturbed and shocked by the situation. Many women have fallen victim to this depravity. Now, at least, people are coming forward and protesting. That’s a glimmer of hope,” said singer Lopamudra Mitra.
Some of the recent horrific incidents include:
- A deaf and mute woman being gang-raped in a tea garden in Banarhat on August 27.
- A patient being molested in a Howrah hospital on September 1.
- An eighth-grade student’s throat being slit inside a moving bus in Komarpur, East Burdwan, on September 17.
- A student being publicly assaulted in Belgoria on October 4.
- A woman being raped and poisoned in Potashpur on October 6.
- A nine-year-old child being raped and murdered in Farakka on October 14.
- A woman being gang-raped in front of her husband on October 30, followed by a similar incident on the Kalyani express highway the next day.
- A 60-year-old woman being raped in Memari on November 3.
- On November 5, an elderly woman was raped in Tarapith by two minors and an adult, while her husband was held captive. The accused even recorded the incident on their mobile phones. All three accused were arrested, with the minors being sent to a juvenile home. However, the adult accused was seen laughing and told the media that recording the video was his mistake.
