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