Prof Bhaskar shares a critical perspective on women’s safety, police accountability, and political turmoil in West Bengal on DifferentTruths.com.

Lest the criminal history of humankind be forgotten, I think it is my pious responsibility to document what is possible, subject to time constraints and my myopic understanding. The latest one is the rape-cum-murder of a girl studying in standard six in a school in the suburban town of Baruipur. Allegedly, it was gang rape. Of course, it does not matter whether it was mono-rape or gang-rape, for the 12-year-old girl was killed – thrown into a pond even when she was alive – as reported by the forensic expert through electronic media.

The serious allegation from the public and the girl’s relatives was that the police did not take action in time, even after being informed about the girl who went missing from a public road in early July 2026 at 4:30 in the afternoon to attend a birthday party at her friend’s house. Police represent the state, and the police are state-protected – supposedly much more than common people and women.

The more serious allegation against police was that a suspected person, an auto driver, was lynched by the angry crowd in full public view and in the presence of police. The question did not come on the logic of lynching – the state witnessed it with no action as a follow-up. Hopefully, the police did not understand their duties, for they remain state-protected.

Meanwhile, the rape-murder has become a political question – the answer is not known. First, the former CM of the government of West Bengal expressed her willingness to reach Baruipur to meet the parents of the victim girl. Still, the police stopped her with an intimidating presence in large numbers in front of her house in Kalighat, Kolkata, as a form of ‘house arrest’ or ‘Najar Bondi’. She succeeded in sending her team to Baruipur, which ultimately succeeded, though obstructed by police repeatedly on the road – probably as a moral responsibility of state surveillance.

The next day, dissident BJP-close Trinamool Congress members reached Baruipur, protected by police Bundobust (arrangement), to meet the victim’s parents, whose spokesperson, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, informed the electronic media that the honourable present CM sent them. On July 7, 2026, the present CM of the ‘double engine’ government prepared to assure support to the victim’s family and advocate for the pledged ‘capital punishment’ of the culprits. The high-profile minister Agnimitra Pal spoke on behalf of the Government of West Bengal. The present CM did not arrive until 1 pm on July 7, 2026, after celebrating the birthday of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee on July 06, 2026, in Kolkata in the presence of India’s home minister.

Come what may, politically speaking, rape is not new in West Bengal, especially in the past decade. The most serious state offence is taking these lightly, as conveyed to me telephonically by the angry and innocent people – the case of rape-cum-murder of Abhaya in RG Kar Hospital in central Kolkata on August 9, 2024, is still alive in the public mind. People are unaware of the CBI’s steps in the Abhaya episode, the state’s promised actions against the rapists-murderers and lynchers, and the punishment the police will receive for their indifference and unhealthy tolerance. The police had great patience in allowing the suspected person to be lynched in full public-police view on a public road.

Of course, there are major issues like border security, statues to be built, protection of VIPs, singing the national anthem in schools, course content for students in schools that is to include Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, changing names of roads, etc. in West Bengal, apart from major questions like inflation, unemployment, foreign exchange reserves, trade, and foreign relations at the pan-India level. In this milieu, the safety of girls and women is lost or does not make the state’s priority list.

Who are most vulnerable in West Bengal now and over the past few decades? Women in general, and little girls in particular. There was a time in India’s misogynist political circle when the victims were responsible for being raped or raped and murdered for their unwelcome dress and for going out of the house after evening. Bullshit.

Some eyewitnesses complained that the police let the publicly caught culprit go free, though under public pressure, the alleged culprits were ultimately caught. Undoubtedly, the (in)human-male society still fails to protect and respect women, even in a land of Gandhi-Buddha-Chaitanya. In my myopic understanding and limited reading, Bharat did not have a history of rape of girls, though consensual copulation was there, like the Dushyanta-Shakuntala episode.

My understanding is that women are to be protected much more than the police, including the female police. The reasons need no elaboration. I believe the state will understand it – the sooner, the better.   

Picture design by Anumita Roy

Prof. Bhaskar Majumder

Prof Bhaskar Majumder superannuated as an Economics professor from GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. He served as a visiting professor at Central University of Bihar (Patna), Sri Sri University (Cuttack), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Science College (Calcutta University), and others. He published extensively in 26 reputed journals, authored 11 books, co-edited two, and contributed 38 chapters. He completed 26 research projects funded by the Planning Commission, GoI ministries, ICSSR, the World Bank, NTPC, and Tata Chemicals. An international academic, journal reviewer, and PhD supervisor, he holds degrees from the University of Calcutta. He is our National Editor: Economics and Social Science.