Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar said it was only natural for police to respond in equal measure when they are being fired on (file picture)
BJP MLA Ratna Debnath, mother of the 2024 RG Kar rape-murder victim, said, “Our CM Suvendu Adhikari had promised that we will catch them (perpetrators of sexual violence) in the morning and eliminate them by afternoon. Former Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said: “If police start opening fire, it won’t take long for the state’s law and order to collapse.
We act decisively,” he said. His comments came after Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee questioned the BJP govt’s record on law and order and what he called its “encounter policy” in a post on X. He alleged that despite the BJP govt’s “much-publicised encounter policy”, incidents of sexual violence had persisted in the state and that more than 2,500 incidents of rape, 600 murders and 34,000 grave offences had been recorded in the state in recent months. State minister and Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh said: “Under the previous govt, we saw several atrocities against women.
Majumdar also drew a difference between how the BJP govt dealt with cases of violence against women as opposed to the previous govt. “The previous administration used to question the victim’s character. I fully support the statement. But this time, the govt has taken a very strong step to combat crimes against women. It is unacceptable to openly authorise encounters based on suspicion.”
Kolkata: Defending the police in the political controversy surrounding the encounter of the prime accused in the Raiganj rape and murder case, Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar said on Monday that it was only natural for police to respond in equal measure when they are fired upon.