KOLKATA:The Muslim woman, who was a victim of police high-handedness in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, could not be granted bail on Wednesday as the judicial process was stalled after the police failed to submit the case diary in court.
As a result, the woman, along with her three-year-old son, husband, mother-in-law and three other BJP workers will have to remain in jail till Monday. They had been arrested by the police on July 5 and charged with non-bailable offences, including possession of arms, manufacturing and hurling bombs at the police.
The woman, whose palms were slashed with razors and poison ivy rubbed on her private parts allegedly by a police team which had picked her up on January 17 night, was protesting on July 5 against the stock piling of bombs in a local Trinamool Congress office at her village at Sattor. The police told the judge, who had directed them to submit the case diary on Wednesday, that further interrogation was needed before the case diary could be submitted, since fresh evidence had been unearthed in the case.
Defence lawyer Somnath Mukherjee, though, alleged that it was a conscious decision by the police and pleaded that bail be granted to the two women since a small child was unnecessarily suffering in jail.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Tuesday during her visit to Birbhum sided with the police, justifying the arrest of the housewife and instead pointed fingers at the BJP for the violence rocking the district since last year’s Lok Sabha polls. The Congress too joined in the protest against the arrest of the woman victim and staged a demonstration in front of Suri jail. State Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury MP alleged, “Mamata herself indicated during her Birbhum tour that the woman victim will be tortured more for exposing the policemen who tortured her. We will organise statewide protests demanding her unconditional release.”