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

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 West Bengal
held the victim’s husband and children
hostage at the time of rape was not
arrested, as according to Superintendent of
Railway Police of Sealdah station,
Nabarun Bhattacharya, “there are no
specific complaints against any
accomplice.” 28
On the night of 9 September 2004, a
25-year-old housewife (name withheld)
was allegedly raped by constable Saumitra
Chowdhury in Harwah Police Station
barracks at Basirhat in North 24-Parganas.
The victim was picked up by the accused
in a mobile police jeep when she was
returning home along with others around
midnight after attending a quwwali
programme. The medical report confirmed
the rape of the 25-year-old housewife. 29
Following protest and widespread
agitation, the accused police constable was
suspended and arrested. 30
Police also refused to cooperate with
women victims of violence. In December
2003, a widow from Bosepara village in
Khandaghosh, about 140 km from
Kolkata, filed a rape case against Dhiraj
Das, a health inspector at the
Khandaghosh Block Health Centre, with
the Burdwan Police Station but the police
officials allegedly refused to register her
case. The victim then approached the
Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in
January 2004, and a case was registered at
the Burdwan police station only after an
order from the court. 31
On 25 January 2004, a 22-year-old
pregnant woman Lakshmi Sahani was
allegedly assaulted by two men but the
police at the New Jalpaiguri Police Station
refused to lodge her complaint apparently
because the alleged assailants Narayan
Adhikari and Gopal Adhikari were close to
a local influential leader of the Centre of
Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the labour
arm of the CPM. She was allegedly kicked
repeatedly on her lower abdomen near the
New Jalpaiguri station for supporting her
father when he protested against a hole
being dug on the ground dangerously close
to an electric pole. On 27 March 2004, the
State Human Rights Commission sought a
detailed report from the Jalpaiguri
Superintendent of Police on the case in
response to a complaint from the victim. 32
On 19 August 2004, two State Armed
Police constables, Bimal Halder and Samir
Saha were arrested on the charge of
harassing and trying to molest two women
in front of the United Bank of India’s Hill
Cart Road branch around 11.30 pm on 18
August 2004. 33
III. Rights of the Child: Corporal
Punishment
On 6 February 2004, Calcutta High
Court banned the practice of caning or
beating students in schools in the state.
Acting on a PIL, a division Bench
reportedly directed the Director of School
Education to issue a circular to all state
schools prohibiting caning. The court
held that while canning, which could lead
to death, was still prevalent in the state, it
is contrary to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and in an age of
scientific teaching, caning or beating
265