annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 West Bengal
Protection Forces.
On the night of 25 March 2004, four
BSF jawans allegedly gang raped two
sisters, aged 17 and 20, after forcing their
way into their hut in a border village in
Malda district. According the victims’
mother who filed a complaint at Kaliachak
police station on 26 March 2004, the BSF
jawans from the nearby Golapganj border
outpost had knocked on her door around
10 pm on 25 March 2004 and asked for a
glass of water. When she refused to open
the door and asked them to go away, the
men allegedly crossed the bamboo-fencing
around the hut and broke open the door.
While one of the jawans held the woman
and her son at bay, the others gang raped
her two daughters. 26
At mid-night on 7 August 2004, a
pregnant Dalit woman, Lilabati
Chowdhury wife of Chhutka Chowdhury
from Pakamati-Mohula village was
allegedly tortured severely by a police
patrol party of the Beharampore police
station of Murshidabad. She was seven
months pregnant. The police personnel
had entered Lilabati’s mud house looking
for her husband. Not finding her husband,
Lilabati asked the police why were they
being harassed when there was no
complaint against them. This was enough
to attract assault from the police. After the
assault, Lilabati was admitted to the
Baharampur Block Hospital in the
Karnasubarna area. Thereafter, several
policemen in uniform came to the hospital
and warned Lilabati not to speak to
anybody about the incident. No action was
264
taken against those responsible. 27
On the night of 17 August 2004, a 30year-old
woman was allegedly raped by a
Railway Protection Force constable named
Kapil Deorai inside a train compartment at
the Hasnabad railway station. The victim
along with her husband and three minor
children boarded a train at Sealdah in
Kolkata and reached Hasnabad, about 70
km from Kolkata, at around 11 p.m. Since
it was late night, the couple failed to find
transport to go home at Bhaktinagar in
Dulduli, 18 km away from Hasnabad.
While they were resting at the platform
two Railway Protection Force (RPF)
constables Kapil and his accomplice
approached the couple and “advised” them
to wait in a train compartment as the
“platform was not safe” for them. The
couple obeyed them and went to sleep in a
train compartment. Once the couple was
inside the train compartment, the
constables said they wanted to search
them. While another constable held the
husband and the children hostage in one
compartment, Kapil raped the woman in
another. After both constables fled from
the scene, the couple lodged a complaint at
the Government Railway Police (GRP)
outpost at the station. Later they also
informed Hasnabad police station, but the
policemen there refused to entertain their
complaint. On 18 August 2004, the
Government Railway Police arrested
Kapil from his Barasat house after
incensed commuters held up trains for five
hours at the railway station from 6.40 am.
However, another accused constable who