The family of the Durgapur medical student who has alleged gang rape have said they want to take her home to Odisha for further treatment, citing safety concerns in Bengal and handing the BJP fresh ammunition against Trinamool.
“I don’t want to keep my daughter here any more. I want to take her to Odisha, which is a far better state,” the woman’s father told reporters in Durgapur on Monday.
A source said the family did not want the student to continue her education in Durgapur, and had sought help from Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi in the matter.
The family’s comments came on a day two more men were arrested in the case, taking the total number of arrests to five.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari met the woman’s father in Durgapur on Monday and promised help to shift his daughter — now in the ICU at her medical college hospital — to Odisha.
He also promised to speak to Majhi and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan about safeguarding the second-year student’s academic career if she left Bengal without completing her MBBS course.
“I met the student’s father and spoke to her mother over the phone,” Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, said.
“They want to take their daughter to AIIMS Bhubaneswar for better treatment and will do so once the doctors permit it.”
He added: “The family told me they no longer wanted to keep their daughter here and were worried about her career.”
Adhikari said the family had already paid the private medical college a huge sum in fees.
A BJP source said that if the family takes the student away from Bengal, it would amount to a political setback for Trinamool.
“The family members have already said in public that they have no faith in the Bengal government regarding their daughter’s safety,” a BJP leader said.
“The state’s law-and-order situation will once again be exposed if the girl has to leave Bengal and her educational institution on security grounds.”
Another BJP leader indicated that the Durgapur incident, coming after several high-profile rape cases in Bengal over the past 14 months, would bolster the party’s efforts to make women’s safety a key plank ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.
BJP sources suggested that the proactiveness of Odisha’s BJP government in the matter had given the Bengal unit a fillip in its battle against Trinamool.
After the incident came to light on Saturday, Majhi had urged Mamata to “take exemplary action against the accused as per the law”.
He spoke to the woman’s father on Monday and promised help with her treatment and education.
BJP leaders have criticised Mamata for not visiting Durgapur and meeting the woman student.
A three-member team from the Odisha women’s commission, headed by its chairperson Sovana Mohanty, arrived in Durgapur on Monday evening and met the woman in hospital.
Trinamool accused the BJP of playing politics with the incident despite Bengal police having arrested five people by Monday.
“Suvendu Adhikari initially tried to give the incident a communal colour. After failing to do so, he is trying to send the family back to Odisha, where people accused of crimes against women often go unpunished,” Trinamool leader Arup Chakraborty said.
“The BJP is playing politics to malign Bengal, which, unlike BJP-ruled states, ensures that rapists are arrested and punished immediately.”
CPM attacks CM
CPM state secretary Md Salim said chief minister Mamata Banerjee had “brought out in the open her fundamentalist mindset” by advising women to observe night curbs and protect themselves.
Before leaving for Bagdogra on Sunday, Mamata had expressed shock at the Durgapur incident while saying women students “should not be allowed” to leave their campuses at night and “have to protect themselves”.
Her “patriarchal” comments drew wide condemnation, with critics accusing her of promoting regressive ideas to avoid having to admit a failure of law and order.
“Since the RG Kar incident (a doctor’s rape and murder in August last year) the chief minister and her administration have learnt no lessons,” Salim told reporters.
“The administration lacks a sense of guilt. The chief minister of a progressive state cannot speak such language.… The chief minister is walking in a direction opposite to Ram Mohan Roy, Vidyasagar and others.… Being a woman herself, such statements from the chief minister are encouraging criminals.”