Friday, 02 March 2012, Pioneer

Dr RK Sarkar of Bankura Sanmelani Medical College, charged with raping a differently-abled patient, was arrested and produced before a district court on Thursday. He has been charged with section 376(2D) even as the preliminary medical report of the victim confirmed that she was raped police said.

She had been undergoing treatment at a Government hospital in Kolkata.

A three-pronged inquiry by the CID, the police and a 3-memnber medical panel was being conducted, district SP Pranab Kumar said, adding the medical superintendent of the hospital had been asked to proceed on leave.

Meanwhile, amid recurrent reports of rape bringing Bengal to the forefront for the wrong reasons, a district court in Burdwan handed out an exemplary punishment to a rape-and-murder accused within a year of the incident taking place.

Accused Netai Bagdi was handed out death sentence for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl by a Sessions Court in Burdwan. The crime had taken place at Gariapukur village in Aushgram block of Burdwan district on April 29, 2011. He was charged under Sections 376, 302 and 201 IPC.

The “honourable court found that the incident belonged to the ‘rarest of rare category’ keeping in view the ferocity and brutality of the act and the age of the victim barely a teenager,” Aditya Banerjee, a lawyer said, adding “This would go a long way in containing the incidents of rapes and molestations that have gone up in the State in recent times.”

The Burdwan verdict came in tandem with Bengal Governor MK Narayanan condemning the rising incidents of rape as “disturbing.” The Governor rued how Bengal which once used to be “one of the safest places to live in” was getting bad name for some people who were indulging in such “dastardly acts.”

He said, “It is the duty of one and all to protect the women as Bengal has been one of the safest places to live in,” adding quickly however that the interested quarters “should not sensationalise the incidents of rape.” He assured, “Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and I have been talking to the police for handle the situation better.”

The police hurried to take action after a National Commission for Women sought an action-taken-report from the Bengal Government. The victim from Saltora village of Bankura was raped in the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday her mother Mongola Gorai had alleged.

The 19-year-old girl had come to the Hospital with complains of chest pain. Her father said alleging the junior doctor guided her to a room for treating her.