Mamata writes to Modi to demand stringent rape laws and swift justice, Abhishek reiterates call on social media

Kolkata: With her government and the party beleaguered by outrage over the rape and murder of a doctor at a hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressing the need for stringent central legislation to deal with such heinous crimes.

The Trinamool Congress supremo’s heir apparent Abhishek Banerjee too suggested that the state governments should prod the Centre to enact a comprehensive law ensuring swift and strict justice for the victims of sexual assault. He stressed that trial and conviction in cases of rape should be completed within 50 days. The chief minister, however, went further and wrote to the prime minister that special fast-track courts should be established for speedy trial in such cases, preferably within 15 days.

In her letter to Modi, Mamata avoided any reference to the rape and murder of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, although the widespread outrage over the incident put her party in a tight spot and the Bharatiya Janata Party even demanded her resignation.

She rather referred to the 'regular and increasing occurrence' of rapes, which in some cases were followed by murder. “It is horrifying to see that almost 90 cases of rapes occur daily throughout the country,” she wrote to the prime minister. “This shakes the confidence and conscience of the society and the nation. It is the bounden duty for all of us to put an end to it so that the women feel safe and secure.”

Abhishek, in his post on X, however, took note of the protest across the nation over the rape and murder of a young doctor at the hospital and medical college run by the West Bengal government in Kolkata. He, however, noted that while the protest over the incident was going on, 900 rapes had been committed across different parts of India. “Sadly, a lasting solution remains largely undiscussed.”

“With 90 rapes reported daily, 4 every hour and 1 every 15 minutes – the urgency for a decisive action is clear. We need strong laws that mandate trials and conviction within 50 days, followed by the severest punishments, not just empty promises,” the general secretary of the TMC wrote on X. “(The) state governments must act and urgently push the Union for a comprehensive anti-rape law that ensures swift and strict justice. Anything less is merely symbolic and tragically ineffective.”

The Kolkata Police arrested a civic volunteer – a contractual employee of the law-enforcing agency – for the rape and murder of the doctor, just a day after she was found dead at the Seminar Room of the Department of Chest Medicine of the RGKMCH on August 9. But the protest, initiated by her colleagues, spread like wildfire, not only in West Bengal, but across the nation, and the Calcutta High Court on August 13 handed over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Mamata did not publicly question the rationale of the protests by the doctors in the wake of the crime but accused the BJP and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) of trying to politicise the crime in a bid to destablise the Trinamool Congress government in the state.