By The Indian state of West Bengal has been on the boil for the past few days over the alleged rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.
The body of the child was fished out from a pond on Sunday – a day after her family reported her missing.
The incident in Surjyapur village in Baruipur, on the outskirts of Kolkata, has triggered days of violent protests, a mob lynching and the police killing of one of the suspects. Three other men who have been arrested remain in custody.
Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find distressing.
The child’s rape and murder – and the subsequent killing of the suspect – has snowballed into a huge political row, with the opposition parties accusing the state’s newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of failing to protect women.
The BJP, which swept to power in West Bengal for the first time ever in May, has rejected the accusation. But the crime, barely two months after the win, couldn’t have come at a worse time as the party had campaigned heavily on the issue of making the state safe for women.
Analysts say one of the main reasons three-term chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost the election was growing concern over women’s safety and her government’s shoddy handling of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a government hospital.
In the latest case, as more horrific details of the crime have emerged, questions have been raised about the role of the police, while a local politician from the governing party has become embroiled in the controversy.
Family members of the girl said they last saw her on Saturday afternoon when she went out to buy a birthday gift for a friend.
When she didn’t return home, they went to the police station at around 20:30 to seek help in finding her.
The family and villagers alleged that the police did not take their pleas seriously and said they would look into it the next day.
Desperate family members and villagers then themselves looked through the CCTV footage from nearby shops and spotted her walking with Prabhash Mondal – a local man who has since been killed by the police.
Early Sunday morning, a mob went to Mondal’s house, caught him and handed him over to the police.
A few hours later, a sack containing the girl’s body was pulled out from the pond, with media reports saying Mondal had led the police to the exact spot.
According to the post-mortem report, the cause of death is drowning, leading to claims that she was alive when she was dumped in the pond.
“Had the police acted earlier, she could have been saved,” her relatives have said.
The police complaint has since been amended to include charges under the Pocso, India’s stringent law on child sexual abuse. The police have yet to hold a press conference on the case or respond to the allegations.
The government has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to inquire into the case.
The recovery of the body saw anger pour out onto the streets, with a mob vandalising roads, shops and a local railway station. A young man was beaten to death by the crowd – Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has since said he was innocent.
Several police officers were injured and vehicles damaged as they tried to contain the mob. Police have registered three cases and detained 40 people so far.
The area remains tense, with a ban on public gatherings and heavy police and paramilitary deployment to maintain order.
The case has also become mired in a political controversy and is threatening to take on religious overtones as the victim was Muslim whereas the arrested men are Hindus.
A local BJP leader, Sushant Mondal’s home was attacked and ransacked by a mob that accused him of helping the suspects. He denied the allegations saying they were “false” and that he had in fact “helped catch the perpetrators”.
To contain the public anger, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited the village on Tuesday and met the victim’s family.
“Our government is committed to curb any such incidents in the state. The police is doing what needs to be done. The family has spoke to me, they have lost their beloved daughter. I believe that they are satisfied talking to me.”
Less that 24 hours later, Prabhash Mondal was killed in a “police encounter”.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, Baruipur police said Mondal had been taken to the pond to recreate the crime scene as part of the investigation, but he attempted to snatch the weapon from a policeman and opened fire at them.
The police retaliated and fired back, striking him. The injured accused was taken to hospital, where he was declared dead, the statement said.
Even though no allegations had been proven against Mondal, his mother appeared to have disowned her son and refused to accept his body.
“Two policemen came to my house. I had just woken up. They told me that my son had died and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I told them I couldn’t because my husband was ill,” she told news agency ANI.
“I said, do whatever you want to do. I have no objection. My son has been punished for what he did. I will not accept his body. I will not even bring his body home,” she added.
Opposition politicians and rights activists, however, have questioned the killing, saying it went against the rule of law.
Ranjit Sur of the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights called the matter “suspicious”.
Sur said the story of police encounters in many states of the country is almost the same – the accused tries to escape by snatching the police weapon and is then killed in the encounter.
In 2019 in a similar incident, four men accused of gang-raping and murdering a young woman in Hyderabad were killed by the police in an encounter.
