Union minister Kiren Rijiju and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee (File photos)
NEW DELHI: Union minister Kiren Rijiju, highlighting West Bengal chief ministerMamata Banerjee’s “victim-blaming” remark on the Durgapur gangrape case, singled out the “illiberal gang” for being conspicuously silent on the matter.While taking the authorities of a private medical college in Durgapur to task for the circumstances leading to the alleged gang rape of a student late on Friday, Mamata Banerjee said that allowing a girl to step out of a campus “located in a forested area” past midnight is “shocking”.”How did they (the girl and a male friend) come out of the campus at 12.30 am? Wasn’t it the responsibility of the college? I don’t know why they were allowed to leave at that hour,” she said in her first reaction to the crime involving the second-year MBBS student from Odisha.”Imagine, if this statement was made by a BJP Chief Minister! The whole echo-system and self declared liberal journalists (actually illiberal gang) would have created unbearable situation in the country [sic],” said Union parliamentary minister Kiren Rijiju. CM Banerjee, who had to contend with a public uproar and a prolonged doctors’ agitation after August 2024 rape-murder of a medical resident studying for her PG at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, said it isn’t possible for cops to be present everywhere at all times of the day. She urged students from other states to be “careful and not venture out of campuses in forested areas late at night” since they might be unfamiliar with the local terrain.Mamata’s remarks coincided with the arrest of three suspects in the Durgapur case. The survivor’s male friend is being detained for further interrogation. “No one (linked with the crime) will be spared,” the CM said, adding, “Cops are searching for everyone involved. All the guilty will be punished strictly.”A classmate of the survivor and another man have been detained for quizzing. Police identified the latter as Sheikh Nasiruddin, 24, whose motorcycle was allegedly used by the accused to flee. The two-wheeler has been seized.
