Kolkata: A five-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court today rejected the West Bengal government’s plea to make the details of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)’s report on post-poll rape allegations public on grounds that that concerned privacy of victims whose names figured in the report.
The court asked the state government to submit a reply to the final report submitted by a team of the NHRC on July 26, 2021.
In the violence after the Trinamool Congress’s third consecutive victory at the West Bengal elections on May 2, 2021 at least 16 people were killed in the violence, besides alleged incidents of sexual assaults and rape.
In its 50-page report submitted to the court on July 13, the NHRC had recommended CBI investigation into murder, rapes in post poll violence in West Bengal and suggested that these cases should be tried outside the state.
A defiant West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today alleged connivance between the NHRC and the Bharatiya Janata Party and claimed that it is the BJP that does vandalism the most after the elections. He alleged that one of the NHRC members belonged to the BJP and was a member of the BJP’s students’ wing.
“As per the instructions given by the BJP, the NHRC member wrote a report consisting of some made up stories, submitted it to the court and handed over the report to the press publicly even before the judiciary arrived at a decision,” she was quoted as saying by news agency IBNS.
– global bihari bureau
