The BJP alleged on Saturday that two tribal women were stripped naked and tortured a few days ago in West Bengal while police remained a “mute spectator”. In a Twitter post, BJP’s I-T department head Amit Malviya, who is also the party’s co-incharge for the state, said the incident took place in Malda on July 19, with a “frenzied mob baying for her blood”.
He also posted a video with blurred images of the crime. “It had all the making of a tragedy that should have ‘broken’ Mamata Banerjee’s heart and she, instead of merely outraging, could have acted, since she is also the home minister of Bengal,” he said, attacking the state’s chief minister who has been strident in criticising the Manipur incident. With opposition parties targeting the BJP over the incident of two women being paraded naked in ethnic violence-hit Manipur, where it is in power, the party has been highlighting similar cases of atrocities against women in states ruled by its rivals such as the Congress and the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. Slamming Banerjee, Malviya said she chose to do nothing in the case. “Neither did she condemn the barbarity nor did she express pain and anguish because it would have exposed her own failing as a chief minister,” he said. But a day after, she shed copious tears and screamed blue murder because it was politically expedient, Malviya said in reaction to her attack on the BJP over the Manipur incident which sparked a nationwide outrage after a May 4 video of it went viral. Malviya said, “The horror continues in West Bengal. Two tribal women were stripped naked, tortured and beaten mercilessly, while police remained a mute spectator in Pakua Hat area of Bamangola Police Station, Malda.”