Muslim Woman Victimised by Police Granted Bail

KOLKATA:Despite the Public Prosecutor(PP) describing the Muslim woman victim of police atrocities as an “influential and dangerous woman”, Suri court in West Bengal’s Birbhum district on Friday granted bail to the woman and her mother-in-law citing lack of evidence.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Indranil Chatterjee came down heavily on government counsel Ranjit Ganguly while examining the case as he observed that no attempts were made to seize the bombs by the investigating officer, though the accused were charged with possession of arms, manufacturing and hurling bombs at police.

The PP described the Muslim housewife, whose family members are BJP supporters, as “a very influential and dangerous woman whose bail might breach peace in the area” and compared the case to Burdwan blast at Khagragarh on October 2. “Just because the accused is carrying an infant on her lap, it doesn’t mean she is Draupadi,” the PP said.

The woman has been in jail since Sunday along with her three-year-old son.

The PP even wanted to add other offences, including attempt to murder against the accused but the CJM not only declined to do so  but also observed that the two accused women did not have any criminal antecedents. Moreover, he claimed that the police never wanted the duo’s custody to investigate the alleged crimes.

Defence counsel Somnath Mukherjee argued that without a shred of evidence the police were trying to keep the woman victim along with her infant and old mother-in-law in jail for ulterior motives. Though, the two women were granted bail, the four BJP supporters were remanded in judicial custody.

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 for protesting against the stockpiling of bombs at the local TMC office in her village.