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Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra slammed the Maharashtra government over the delay in filing a First Information Report (FIR) in the case of the sexual assault of two kindergarten students in Badlapur. Taking to X, she drew a comparison between the Maharashtra Police's reaction to the case and how the Kolkata Police acted on the gruesome rape-murder of a woman trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The Kolkata rape-murder has triggered countrywide protests and demands for Trinamool head and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to resign.
Moitra said that unlike in the Badlapur case where the Maharashtra Police "refused" to register an FIR for days, the Kolkata Police "arrested the accused within hours" in the RG Kar rape-murder.
"RG Kar case had videographed autopsy and Kolkata Police arrested accused within hours. In Maharashtra, police refused to file FIR for days. This is the real non-democratic alliance," Mahua Moitra tweeted on Wednesday.
The sexual assault of two kindergarten girls, aged three and four, inside a school in Maharashtra's Badlapur by a cleaning staffer triggered massive protests in the region, with angry locals vandalising the educational institution and a mob disrupting train services. The protests later turned violent as stones were thrown, and the police resorted to lathicharge the crowd to disperse them from the railway tracks. Internet services, which were snapped in Badlapur, was restored even as tensions continued in the town. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) said it would send a team to Badlapur for an inquiry into the case.
According to the complaint, the incident happened on August 13 and came to light on August 16 after one of the girls refused to go to school and informed her parents about the sexual assault. The accused was arrested on August 17. The parents of the two girls alleged that an FIR was filed 12 hours after they lodged a complaint.
Meanwhile, in the rape-murder case of a postgraduate woman trainee doctor at Kolkata's reputed state-run RG Kar hospital, the accused was arrested a day after the victim's semi-naked body was found inside the campus on August 9. The accused, Sanjoy Roy, worked as a civic volunteer with the Kolkata Police.
The response of the hospital authorities and the Bengal government under Mamata Banerjee has invited condemnation from across the country. One of the matters that has specifically been criticised is the registration of the FIR at 11.45 pm despite the body being discovered in the early hours of August 9. Furthermore, the hospital initially attempted to pass off the murder as a suicide and made her parents wait for nearly three hours for the body.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Bengal government for its various lapses in the handling of the woman trainee doctor's rape-murder and failing to control vandalism in the RG Kar hospital.
