Land dispute led to rape, poisoning, says 60-year-old Bengal woman

Kolkata, July 18 The 60-year-old woman who was raped and poisoned in front of her five-year-old grandson in a remote village in West Bengal's East Midnapore alleged that her distant relatives who owe their allegiance to the ruling Trinamool Congress were responsible. She also claimed that they wanted to grab her land and thus, she was subjected to such a brutal attack.

According to the National Human Rights Commission report that was submitted before the Calcutta High Court, the woman said that on the night of May 4-5, two days after the Assembly election results, Trinamool men attacked her inside her home and one of them raped her, as her five-year-old grandson watched. She was also forced to ingest some poison, and spent more than a month in hospital.

Speaking to IANS from her secret hideout in Kolkata where she has been living for the last one month fearing that she and her family might be killed if they return to their village in East Midnapore district, the sexagenarian woman alleged: "We are scared to go to our village. We are getting calls from unknown people threatening us to drop the case. Four of the five people are our distant relatives and they want to grab my land."

The woman and her family, who once were also supporters of the Trinamool, switched over to the BJP because they wanted to save their 1.5 bigha of land which was their only possession.

"On that fateful night, supporters of Trinamool came and threatened us that if they don't accept their proposal, then they would rape and kill my sister-in-law. Scared of the Trinamool goons, we all decided to leave the house but my mother-in-law refused to leave and so she stayed alone in the house with her grandson," the woman's son-in-law, who is now staying with her in Kolkata, said.