Hathras Protest
'Today I am a Dalit': Mamata Banerjee protesting against Hathras fatal gangrape
Kolkata/IBNS: Taking the reign of her party Trinamool Congress (TMC)'s protest against the Hathras fatal gangrape case, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday led a protest march close to downtown Kolkata, pledging to stand beside Dalits as an atrocity was committed against a 19-year old woman belonging to the lowest rung of the prevailing caste system in Uttar Pradesh.
"Today a Dalit is in trouble, so I am a Dalit. If a Hindu is in trouble, I am a Hindu," Banerjee said, lashing out at her political foe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Addressing a moderate crowd after walking around 3 kms from Birla Planetarium to Mahatma Gandhi statue in the Esplanade area, the TMC supremo said, "I felt like running to UP. My heart today is in Hathras. Our representatives went to Hathras but were stopped 1km from the village. The females were beaten, even journalists. It has come to my notice that journalists are receiving threats since yesterday."
"Encounters in Uttar, Delhi riots, the killings of journalists but how many people have got justice? The Trinamool Congress will continue to raise our voices for them. My only caste is humanity," she added.
Launching an all out attack on the BJP, which is apparently the prime challenger to the TMC in the upcoming 2021 state polls, Banerjee said, "Criminal offenses can happen anywhere, we condemn it regardless of where it happens. But people expect justice when these things happen. But what happened there? Without giving the body to the family, police burnt the body without giving the body to the family. They have taken away their phones, not allowing the media to meet the family.
"This is a super autocracy, this is not a democracy. BJP is the biggest pandemic."
Banerjee's address came a day after a four-member delegation comprising TMC MPs Derek O'Brien, Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Pratima Mondal and former parliamentarian Mamata Thakur had traveled about 200 kms from Delhi but was stopped 1.5 kilometers from the victim's home in Hathras.
The Yogi Adityanath government has come under attack after the 19-year old, who belongs to the lowest rung of caste system prevailing in the north Indian state, was allegedly dragged by her dupatta, gangraped by four men, got her spinal cord damaged and her tongue cut.
Two weeks after the incident, which occurred on Sept 14, the girl succumbed to her injuries at a Delhi hospital last Tuesday.
In an even more shocking incident, the dead body of the girl was cremated by police officials in the dead of night denying the family members a look at the victim for the last time in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh/IBNS, Images by Avishek Mitra/IBNS)
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