From Calling A Gangrape 'Fabricated' To Celebrating An Encounter: Bengal Comes Full Circle
From Calling A Gangrape 'Fabricated' To Celebrating An Encounter: Bengal Comes Full Circle Written By, Edited By Last Updated: July 10, 2026, 13:18 IST The
From Calling A Gangrape 'Fabricated' To Celebrating An Encounter: Bengal Comes Full Circle Written By, Edited By Last Updated: July 10, 2026, 13:18 IST The key accused of the Baruipur gangrape and murder case, identified as Prabash Mondal, was killed in a police encounter recently. Rapid Read BJP's Suvendu Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee in the 2026 assembly polls. (Image: PTI/File) Nearly three years later, the first major rape case to rock West Bengal under the new BJP government has unfolded. A 12-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly kidnapped, gang-raped and murdered in Baruipur near Kolkata. One of the key accused, identified as Prabash Mondal, was killed in a police encounter. Police claim Mondal snatched a policeman’s firearm and opened fire during a crime scene reconstruction, forcing them to retaliate. As a dispassionate observer, one cannot help but notice two trends immediately after the encounter. First, there has been a push by certain social media handles using Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s old quotes to portray him as a no-nonsense administrator on law and order. On Instagram, a not-so-old video of Adhikari has resurfaced in which he promised, at what appears to be an election rally, that if the BJP came to power, rapists would face police encounters instead of a long-drawn judicial process. He added that a BJP government in Bengal would follow the model set by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The goal is simple: cultivate a strongman image around Adhikari. State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya openly backed his Chief Minister. “In this new government, if you have committed rape or murder, you belong to either of two places — behind bars or above the sky," he said, pointing towards the skyline. The second trend is more sociological. Trinamool Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra on Wednesday slammed the West Bengal government, calling the encounter of the prime accused “jungle law". “Welcome to UP 2.0," she wrote on X. TMC MP Kirti Azad alleged that Mondal’s encounter was “staged". Senior party leader Saugata Roy also condemned the killing. “…I don’t know under whose instruction police killed an accused instead of putting him in the dock before a court.
I am sure that a thorough enquiry will be pursued into this matter," Roy told ANI. Why Has Suvendu’s Encounter Raj Found Silent Acceptance In Bengal? Yet, there has been little visible opposition from Bengali civil society. On the contrary, both on the streets and on social media, there appears to be tacit support for the ruling dispensation that the political opposition is missing. The farther one moves from the urban centres into rural Bengal, the more this tacit support turns explicit, with thousands reacting to news reports of the encounter with laughing emojis. One can question the direction in which a society is headed when it celebrates a police encounter. But for West Bengal, this is something new — where a prime accused, rather than the victim or the complainant, is at the receiving end of state force. A state where the RG Kar rape and murder became perhaps the defining issue of the 2026 Assembly election seems to have had enough of “trusting the system". In 2011, Mamata Banerjee, still relatively young, swept to power with a massive mandate, ending 34 years of Left rule. Eight months later, she made what many consider one of the biggest political blunders of her career. On the night of February 5, 2012, a 37-year-old woman, later publicly identified as Suzette Jordan, was allegedly gang-raped inside a moving car after leaving a nightclub on Park Street in Kolkata. Banerjee initially questioned the allegations and reportedly described the incident as a “fabricated story". Jordan eventually revealed her identity publicly and became an outspoken advocate for survivors of sexual violence. In December 2015, a Kolkata sessions court convicted three accused — Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj — of gang rape, criminal conspiracy, intimidation and related offences. In September 2016, the two absconding accused, including Kader Khan, were arrested in Noida and brought back to Kolkata to face trial. This was the case Banerjee had dismissed as a “shajano ghotona". Since then, both Bengal and Bengalis have witnessed several instances that reinforced the feeling that women’s dignity was disposable through the utterances and actions of those in power.
The BriefWire