3 get death, 3 life-imprisonment in Kamduni gang-rape case
Three people were given death sentence and 3 life-imprisonment by a Kolkata court for gang-raping and killing a woman in 2013 at Kamduni village in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district. Sanchita Sarkar, the Additional district and sessions judge sentenced "Ansar Ali Mollah, Saiful Ali and Amin Ali to death and awarded life imprisonment to Bhola Naskar, Imanul Islam and Aminur Islam."
On 7 June 2013, a 20-year-old woman was assaulted while she was going back home from college. The second-year BA student was coercively taken inside a "factory where she was gang-raped and then brutally murdered". The victim's mutilated body, with injuries all over, was found the next morning in a field behind the factory complex. The rape sparked extensive outrage across the country.
The Kolkata police arrested 9 people in connection with this case and charged them under "IPC sections 376D, 376A, 302, 341, 201, 120B and 109."
There were rampant protests held at the Kamduni bus stop on Rajarhat Main Road by the Kamduni villagers. On 10 June, the Kamduni residents marched in front of Barasat II BDO Office and were later joined by others. On 12 June, the brothers of the victim met the Chief Minister at the Writers Building and refused financial compensation demanding capital punishment for the rapists.
CM of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee visited Kamduni and promised the people that a charge-sheet would be made against those arrested for the rape within 15 days. The men belonged to the area that was Trinamool's stronghold and nothing was done, infuriating the people. On being pressed to hear the side of the Kamduni people, Banerjee "accused them of being CPI(M) cadres and Maoists."
On 20 June 2013, eminent intellectuals like filmmaker Aparna Sen, followed by poet Shankha Ghosh and actor Soumitra Chatterjee held protest marches to get justice for the Kamduni rape victim.
A Kolkata sessions court proclaimed 6 accused in the Kamduni gangrape and murder case guilty while acquitting two others. 8 people were standing trial in the 2013 gang-rape and murder. One of the accused had died in custody during trial. Trinamool Congress hailed the judgement saying it showed "police administration has worked impartially to get the culprits of the gangrape and murder case booked."
