Victim – Chanda Rani Mandal, age – 8 years. Studying in class 2 in Baro Banglani Primary School.
Father – Binay Mandal. Occupation – Agriculture.
Mother – Aparna Mandal, housewife.
Address :
Village – Choto Banglani, PO. Bagangram, Panchayat – Sundarpur, P.S. – Bangaon. Dist. – North 24 Pargana. West Bengal.
On 30th March Friday, at about 2 pm, Chanda’s class was ended. All pupils barring 3 of her class went back to their home. These three, Chanda, Puja Mandal (class 1) and Pritisha Mandal (class 2) were waiting for their respective guardians to come as they belonged to the next village “Choto Banglani”. At that time higher classes were going on.
At that time one Feroze (age about 17 years) came to the school for a bath in the school’s tube well. Feroze’s house is just next building of the school. Feroze called Chanda. Chanda did not respond. Then Feroze caught Chanda and forcibly took her to his house. Her two friends Puja and Pritisha were puzzled what to do. After a while they followed and saw from the window of Feroze’s house that Feroze is doing something wrong to Chanda. They gathered courage and ran to the school and reported to the teachers. The teachers quickly guessed what might have been happened. So, they raised an alarm. Some people gathered and rescued the little girl in a traumatic condition. The agitated people and teachers locked Feroze in a school room. By this time Chanda’s parents arrived there. They were completely shaken. It was completely unimaginable to them. Chanda is their only child.
Local Panchayat Pradhan Shovan Sarkar (TMC) informed the Police. They came from Bangaon P.S. Chanda was in her sense and she narrated the whole incident to her parents and also to the police. At that time, one local CPM leader Mr. Shanti Biswas was trying to dilute the crime.
When police opened the room to get Feroze, some of his relatives and other Muslims tried to snatch away Feroze from police. They could not succeed. Then police took Feroze, little Chanda and her parents to Bangaon police station and registered the case and arrested Feroze. But most surprisingly, they did not perform any Medical Test of Chanda which is of utmost importance in such type of cases.
Next day Saturday, Chanda was produced to the Magistrate of Bangaon court. Hon’ble Magistrate inquired the matter questioning Chanda in presence of her parents. It indicates that police did not pray for the girl’s statement under section 164. Hence the Magistrate ordered them to come again on Monday. So, on Monday again they attended court and Magistrate took the statement of the victim girl in his private chamber. It seems that this statement is under section 164 of law.
On 21 April, Feroze came back to his home getting bail from court and moving around freely.
Still now, police did not give any small piece of paper to the parents of Chanda mentioning FIR or Case no. and Sections imposed upon the culprit. Since they are illiterate, they could not insist upon police to get the records. This is most common phenomenon in every police station for the poor people all over West Bengal.
It is suspected that case of rape has not been registered, because otherwise medical test of the victim would have been done by the police.
The parents of the 2 little friends of Chanda, who are eye witness of this ghastly incident, are under tremendous pressure from some powerful quarter. Hence it is highly apprehended that they will backtrack and will not allow their kids to give testimony.