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| The Gurap home |
Gurap (Hooghly), July 31: A former inmate of a Gurap home for mentally challenged and destitute women alleged that she was raped several times by an employee and was beaten up by an acquaintance of the arrested secretary when she complained.
This is the first time an inmate of the home in Hooghly, which has been in the limelight since the body of an inmate was dug up from inside the premises in early June, has alleged that she was raped.
Eleven home officials have been arrested so far after four bodies suspected to be those of inmates were dug up from the banks of a river in nearby Burdwan. The home has been shut down and the inmates shifted to other such facilities.
“A former inmate who has been transferred to a home in Garia told us yesterday that she had been raped several times by Debabrata Neogi, a health worker at the Gurap home. She had stayed at the Gurap home for three years. She has lodged a formal complaint against Neogi. We are interrogating other inmates as well,” a CID official said.
Neogi was arrested from his home today. “We will hand him over to the CID,” said Ajay Singha, the officer in charge of Gurap police station.
Another officer said the woman had alleged that Neogi used to take her to one of the office rooms in the evening and rape her. “This allegedly continued for a month. The lady said when she complained to the secretary of the home, Uday Chand Kumar, he got her beaten up by Shyamal Ghosh, an acquaintance who used to frequent the home,” he said.
Kumar, who is also the secretary of NGO Dulal Smriti Sansad that runs the home, and Ghosh are among those arrested.
Asked whether the statement of an inmate of a home for the mentally challenged would be tenable in a court of law, CID inspector Sarbari Bhattacharya, who is investigating the case, said: “The woman is not mentally ill. She was sent to the home because she was a destitute. A psychiatrist examined her and told us that she was not mentally ill. We will submit a prayer in the Chisurah court tomorrow requesting that she be medically examined.”
Bhattacharya said more inmates would be questioned. “We have questioned inmates of the Gurap home who have been shifted to four government homes. We need to question the inmates of two of these homes,” she said.
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