Tit for tat: Mamata's team in MP to probe gang rape

INDORE: The gang rape of a 30-year-old mother of four in Madhya Pradesh's Khandwa district has given West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress a chance to get back at the BJP.
A five-member delegation of Trinamool MPs led by Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Shekhar Ray travelled to Khandwa district on Wednesday to meet the survivor. Other members of the delegation included Nadimul Haque, Uma Saren, Arpita Ghosh and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.
The visit is being seen as retaliatory move by Trinamool chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee against the recent visit by central BJP leaders to West Bengal to take stock of violent-hit areas of the state.
The team, which arrived in Indore on Tuesday, drove to Bhilayikeda village, 58 km from Khandwa district headquarters, where the mother of four was allegedly gang-raped, assaulted and paraded by her husband Kailash Bheel on the night of June 10. The TMC team met villagers and relatives of the survivor and then travelled to adjacent Borkheda village, where the woman's parents live.
The five MPs subsequently went to Piplod police station and collected factual details of the case, before travelling to Khandwa district hospital to meet the survivor. During their three-hour stay in Khandwa, the team from Bengal also met deputy superintendent of police (women's cell) Sunita Rawat, who had recorded the woman's statement.
The Trinamool MPs denied the visit had political overtones. "It was a humanitarian visit as the victim was a tribal woman," Ray told reporters. "There's no politics."
But on Sunday Mamata had said: "If there is any violence or rape in any BJP-ruled state, we will send a Trinamool central team. This cannot be one-sided affair. This is tit for tat." Ray said a fact-finding report would be submitted to the West Bengal chief minister.
The Madhya Pradesh government reacted with anger to the visit by the Trinamool MPs.
State health minister and government spokesperson Narottam Mishra said his government would write to the President that the Trinamool Congress delegation's foray into the state had undermined the country's federal structure. "Trinamool Congress should first understand the culture of Madhya Pradesh," Mishra said. "Unlike in Mamata Banerjee's Bengal, we raise political issues and address them politically without the use of violence. TMC should learn from us."
The minister said in Madhya Pradesh rape accused are chargesheeted in 15 days and culprits are sentenced within a month. "When a minor was raped in the state capital, a fast-track court handed out death penalty within a month," he said. "Does that happen in West Bengal? There, a BJP worker was murdered and his assailants are still roaming free."
Mishra said in the Khandwa gang-rape case, there were 11 accused, including the survivor's husband and relatives. "All those involved have been arrested," he said.
He said Mamata had sent the delegation to avenge the Centre's action of sending a team to her state. "A central team was sent to Bengal because of law and order crisis, which has become a national concern," he said. "In Khandwa, the gang-rape incident was a family issue."