Torment and taunts block way to school, rape snuffs out life

A policeman near the houses of the girls in Mathabhanga in Cooch Behar.
Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Main Uddin Chisti, TT, Mathabhanga (Cooch Behar), Nov. 3: Two girls from the same family in Cooch Behar who were allegedly raped on Kali Puja night had almost stopped going to school months before that because of repeated harassment by their suspected tormentors, a family member has said.

One of the girls, 14 years old, hanged herself on the morning of October 30, the day following the alleged crime. The other girl, 13, drank poison at night after the rape and is battling for life in a hospital.

Two neighbourhood youths have been arrested for the alleged rapes and abetting suicide in Mathabhanga, Cooch Behar.

The families of the accused, armed with machetes, allegedly threatened the victims' kin on the night of November 1, but no police complaint was filed after this.

The two girls were related as aunt and niece, but both were in Class IX in the same school, 4km from their homes. The victims, daughters of small farmers who also tilled land for others, used to cycle to school.

But three months ago, their parents told them to stop going to classes everyday when the taunts and innuendos of Rudra Talukdar and Toton Sarkar did to stop.

When this correspondent went to the village, 50km from Cooch Behar town, the father of the deceased girl said the families had decided the girls must not go for tuition classes at all, and go to school as less as possible.

"We would send them to school once or twice a month, fearing for their safety," said the father. "We told the boys' families a number of times, with no result. Now, one girl has consumed poison and my only daughter has died," he said.

When the father was asked why the families did not report the previous harassment to the police, he said he never thought such a step would be necessary. He added that "the families feared trouble from the police".

In this village of about 1,500 people, the main occupations are farming and bidi-making. Puja Mitra, a school student who knew the two girls, said no one in the village had a " sarkari chakri (government job)". Her generation is the first in the village that produced graduates, only a handful.

Rudra, the younger of the two suspects who is 19, used to help his family in the fields. Toton, 21, was a tractor driver. Their families are among the better-off in the village.

The two were arrested on October 31, a day after the deceased girl's father filed a police complaint on the alleged rapes. Both are in police custody.

On the night of October 29, the two boys allegedly dragged the girls away when they were placing earthen lamps at their doorstep. Their families had gone to a nearby Kali Puja.

Since November 1, none of the men in the Talukdar and Sarkar families has been spotted in the village. On Tuesday, when this correspondent visited the homes of the accused, only the women seemed to be there. They refused to speak.

Other villagers said they too wanted their daughters to stop going to school at least for some time, given the atmosphere of fear.

Gokul Mitra, a farmer, said: "Such an incident has never happened in our village. Most of the villagers are with the victims' families, but we are afraid because the families of the accused are threatening them. They are rich. We are afraid of clashes, even bloodshed."

Gokul's wife Namita said she was afraid for daughter Puja, a Class XI student in the same school where the girls studied. She made the same no-school prescription for Puja as the victims' families had done.

"Winter is approaching. The sun rises late. My daughter goes for her private tuitions early morning. I have stopped her classes for a few days," Namita said.

Puja, who knew the two girls, said: "They were quiet, well-behaved girls who kept to themselves. How could something like this happen to them?"

The deceased girl did not have a cellphone. Of her two brothers, the younger one worked in Siliguri in a cellphone repairing shop. He had bought a mobile phone for his sister to gift her on Bhai Phonta.

The brother is back in the village now, but for shraddha.

None of the villagers celebrated Bhai Phonta on Tuesday, the day of the shraddha.

Police have been posted in front of the girls' houses since Monday evening. It is an unusual sight in this peaceful village, where many had settled from East Bengal at the time of Partition, and which is now resplendent with its harvest-time fields of paddy and myriad vegetables.

District police superintendent Anup Jaiswal said the police had arrested the accused within 24 hours. He said he had no report of disturbance from the village.