Kamduni rape: Villagers to meet President to seek justice

Kolkata, July 9: Residents of West Bengal's Kamduni village will meet President Pranab Mukherjee July 15 seeking his intervention for ensuring justice in the brutal rape and murder of a college student in this hamlet of North 24-Parganas district, a Congress leader said.

"I have arranged a meeting of the villagers with the president. The villagers will arrive in New Delhi on July 15," Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said Tuesday.

"The truth will not come out unless there is a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. We will urge the president to intervene into the matter," said one of the villagers.

Since the June 7 gang-rape and murder, Kamduni has been on the boil with villagers staging regular protests demanding death penalty for her attackers and killers. The incident has become a rallying point for people from different sections of society on the issue of growing atrocities against women in the state.

People from all walks of life had earlier participated in a massive rally in the city in protest rising crimes against women. The National Crime Records Bureau has put West Bengal atop the country wide chart of crimes against women in the past year.

The incident also resulted in an embarrassment for the Trinamool Congress government after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, faced with questions from a group of village women during her visit there June 17, shouted at them and accused them of indulging in the politics of the Communist Party of India-Marxist.

The Banerjee government had assured death penalty for the culprits within a month, and a fast-track court trying the case later rebuked the CID, which is investigating the case, for submitting an incomplete charge sheet.

IANS