Journalist’s beating, woman’s rape; Mamata says all cooked up

A journalist of a leading Bengali news channel Tuesday was beaten up allegedly by Trinamool Congress workers in Jadavpur area here Tuesday. However, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called it a “cooked up” case to garner more TRPs than rival channels.

She also sought to term the reported rape of a woman in Burdwan district as “fake”.

Joint commissioner of Police (headquarters) Jawed Shamim said two photojournalists of a leading Bengali daily and a reporter of a Bengali news channel were injured. “Three cases have been filed,” he said.

The reporter, Partha Pratim Ghosh, was mercilesly beaten up when he tried to capture on video the ransacking of a Communist Party of India-Marxist local party office. The office is one of the main election offices of former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

“When I visited the spot, Trinamool supporters told me not to take the video footage. Then all of a sudden some of the Trinamool supporters started abusing. I pleaded but they kept on beating me,” said Ghosh.

However, Banerjee claimed the incident was “cooked up”.

“It is a cooked up incident. Some people have habit of creating cooked up cases… It is just a part of the TRP race (among channels). If a journalist is really attacked, we will take action. But it is a framed case,” she said.

At the same media meet, Banerjee described the alleged rape of a woman in Katwa of Burdwan as a “cooked up” case.

“A complaint of rape has been filed. Nothing has been found in the medical report. Where is the evidence? I do not think any incident of rape has taken place. I hear a political party, of which the woman’s husband is a supporter, has planned to use its workers to cry rape,” Banerjee said.

This is the not the first time Banerjee had termed cases of rape false.

Earlier this month, after the Park Street rape case came into limelight, she had called the incident as a “cooked up” case to malign the government.

However, later on she backtracked on her statement and blamed the media for distorting her comment.

The opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist chose to attribute the attack on its office and the journalists as “fascist”.

Leader of Opposition Surjya Kant Mishra equated the happenings with the days of national emergency in the late 1970s.

“We condemn this incident. This is a fascist attack. Earlier, they only attacked the opposition. Now the media is also being targeted. This reminds us of the dark days of the Emergency,” he said.

The CPI-M has decided to organise a rally Wednesday to protest the ransacking of its office. The rally will be led by Bhattacharjee.

Mishra also termed Banerjee’s comments on the Burdwan rape as “irresponsible”.

“She (Banerjee) says the rape is fake and CPI-M has spread rumors about it because the victim’s husband is our party worker. She seems to know everything but what she doesn’t know is that the husband died 11 years ago,” he said.

“How much does she know about forensic or medical science that she dismissed the claims of rape, saying there are no evidences? She has a habit of making irresponsible comments,” he added.