Barasat rape: Angry Mamata faces protests, blames CPM for rape

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was cornered by protesting residents as she visited the home of a girl who was abducted, brutally beaten and raped in Barasat, located just outside Kolkata. An angry Mamata lashed out at the villagers and blamed the CPM for the rape and murder of college-going girl who was abducted while returning home after writing an exam. “We are number one in taking action. These areas have empty lands that have been occupied by CPM men who raped the college girl,” Mamata said. [caption id=“attachment_877747” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mamata Banerjee. AFP[/caption] “We will take action within a month and will demand life sentence for the accused,” she said. The villagers shouted slogans as the chief minister entered the victim’s house. The silence and inaction of the West Bengal government also saw peaceful protests in Kolkata. The Kolkata Police had picked up and detained a group of protesters who had turned up in front of the chief minister’s south Kolkata home on Friday to seek assurance of action and also submit a memorandum of demands. According to a  Times of India report, the attack was orchestrated by Ali, the caretaker of a godown in the Rajarhat-Aminpur border area, on the eastern fringes of Kolkata on Friday. Ali and his four accomplices Nurul Islam, Sk Amin, Saiful Mollah and Gopal Das, kept drinking inside the premises of the godown and waited for a woman to turn up alone. The Telegraph reports that the accused have confessed to having plotted to rape any woman they could lay their hands on. They kept a watch on all women passing by the godown. They let go of one woman with her husband, they contemplated attacking a group of three girls but then found it too risky, and finally when the victim came along, they grabbed and gagged her before dragging her into the premises.