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