On July 26, OpIndia editor-in-chief Nupur J Sharma spoke to Ritu (name changed) a victim of TMC atrocities which was unleashed in West Bengal after the party’s victory in the recent assembly elections. She had narrated her agony and the helplessness of victims in the state due to police apathy.
After being gang-raped by TMC goons in front of her father, Ritu and her father were continuously harassed by the police, pressuring them to give a different version of the events and to get it on record. Ritu told us that she has even got threatening phone calls telling her that if she dares to go to the police, she will get raped by the police too.
Now, yesterday (July 28, Wednesday), Ritu claimed that she was forcefully taken to the local TMC hoodlum Mamun Sheikh, on whose behest she was gang-raped by TMC goons on May 2, 2021. They pressurized her to take back her rape complaint file a complaint with the NHRC. They also threatened her to either join TMC or face dire consequences.
Update: Ritu (name changed) was taken today to the very people who raped her. They threatened her to either join TMC or face dire consequences. She narrated her plight to @advmonikaarora and a subsequent complaint to NHRC has been filed by her.
— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) July 28, 2021
I have no words. pic.twitter.com/xuphjZttn2
The victims narrated her plight to Supreme Court advocate Monika Aroroa and a subsequent complaint to NHRC has been filed by her.
In the complaint filed with NHRC on July 28, Ritu (name changed) sumarized the series of threats and intimidations meted out at her ever since she filed her first complaint with the NHRC, in which Ritu had detailed the barbarity that was heaped upon her and her father.
In her NHRC compaint she wrote that from the time she filed her first compaint with NHRC until July 23, she was constantly pressurized by police and local TMC goons to take back her complaint and alter her statement.
On July 23, she said some policemen abused and shouted at her father, asking him to produce her before them. It was evident from their body language that they were there to harm her, wrote Ritu in her complaint adding that she somehow saved herself that day by making phone calls to few known people who, inturn, approached NHRC.
On July 26 and 27, TMC leaders approached her family and relatives. They threatened them with dire consequences if Ritu did not take back her complaint and retract her statement. The TMC goons exerted tremendous pressure on her famliy and relatives, Ritu said in her complaint.
‘My only offence is that I am a Hindu and I voted for BJP. Please save me and my family’s life’
Then on July 28 (Wednesday), she was forcefully taken to TMC’s Mamun Sheikh, who told her that she should join TMC, or they would kill her and her family. “He categorically told me that there is no one to protect me so I should join TMC”, she mentioned in her complaint.
She said: “I am extremely terrified and I am afraid these people Police and TMC both are together and pressuring me to withdraw my complaint which I had given to NHRC.”
“My only offence is that, I am a Hindu and I voted for BJP. Please save me and my family’s life”, urged Ritu in her complaint.
In her first complaint with the NHRC, Ritu had narrated the barbarity that was unleashed on her by 7 TMC goondas, who stripped her naked and took turns to rape her in front of her father. She had also, in her complaint, mentioned that the TMC goons were threatening the father-daughter duo to join TMC and leave BJP.
OpIndia’s exclusive interview with the Bengal victim
While speaking to OpIndia on July 26, Ritu disclosed how the TMC goons with the connivance of state police, unleashed hell on her and several other BJP victims in many villages and towns in the interior parts of Bengal.
Several houses in their locality were being brutally attacked by those who purportedly worked for TMC. In this particular village, it was a gang of Muslim men burning down houses, harassing Hindus and attacking the men who worked for BJP in the run-up to elections. News of some women being gang-raped by TMC men had also spread like wildfire. Talking to OpIndia, Ritu says that while the village burnt and women got gang-raped, there was no police in sight. She says that the police, in fact, refused to answer the phone when calls for help were being made.
She narrates her harrowing ordeal on the night of May 2 and how she and her father escaped the cluthes of the TMC goons who planned to kill them after mercilessly brutalising her in front of her father.
She also revealed how she and her father have been constantly threatened and intimidated by the TMC goons as well as the local police to take back their complaint filed with NHRC and give a statement that they could then use to say that the incident never happened.
Ritu said that several BJP victims are languishing in jail while the perpetrators of TMC are walking around scot-free, therefore, the fear that they would arrest them was real and present.
Ritu said that there was no point giving any message to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee since she had no ‘Mamata’ left in her. However, she had an appeal for PM Modi’s help.
She said that PM Modi should do something so Hindu girls can live with pride and security.
Now, Ritu awaits justice. She said that even if it means that she loses her life, she will not withdraw her complaint.
The full interview where Ritu shares her harrowing story with OpIndia Editor-in-Chief Nupur J Sharma can be read here.
