Kolkata College Gang-Rape Reflects TMC’s Unwritten Writ On Campuses

The alleged gang-rape of a 24-year-old first-year law student at South Calcutta Law College on June 25 has brought to the fore, once again, the writ of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the student wing of the state’s ruling party, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Happening less than a year after the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the tate-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, this incident revived debates around campus safety amidst unbridled illegal and immoral practices by people linked to the ruling party.

The incident took place late in the evening on June 25. Manojit Mishra, a former TMCP leader of the college, gave her a marriage proposal. She turned it down. But in the evening, as the college became mostly empty except for some TMCP activists, Mishra tried to force himself on her inside the student union room.

The survivor, a first year law student, is also a TMCP activist and part of the TMC unit of the college.

The first attempt failed, as she strongly resisted, but the TMCP leader had asked the security guard to lock the entrance. As the survivor complained of breathing difficulties and asked for an inhaler, one of Mishra’s accomplices moved out and purchased one.

After she recovered a bit, she was now dragged into the guard’s room, where she was raped and beaten up for her resistance. She alleged she was struck with a hockey stick. After some time, she gave up and pretended to be dead, hoping for their mercy, which was not coming. Mishra raped her as long as he wished.

He had two accomplices, Zaib Ahmed and Pramit Mukherjee, both of them TMCP activists of the college. They helped Mishra in preventing her from moving out. They filmed the assault and the rape. The survivor was threatened the videos would be made public if she told this to anyone. She was also threatened that her father and boyfriend not be spared if she failed to keep her mouth shut.

She moved out of the campus around 11pm, when she was finally allowed to leave. She informed her father and a formal police complaint was lodged the next day.

According to a police officer who has knowledge of the investigation, the medical examination conducted on June 26 corroborated forceful penetration and bruises, bite marks and nail scratches on her neck, chest, and breasts. CCTV footage of the college campus also confirms her version.

The police registered a case of gang-rape. The three accused were arrested on June 27 and produced before a district court, which remanded them to five days’ police custody. Swabs have been collected for forensic testing. The guard was arrested on June 28 for not stopping the rape and keeping the gate locked.

The police have formed a nine-member Special Investigating Team (SIT), led by an assistant commissioner, for speedy investigation and trial.

As the news broke out on June 26, it triggered a furore. Mishra, an ex-student of the college and a TMCP leader of South Kolkata region, is a practicing criminal lawyer. He had joined the college barely 45 days ago as a contractual non-teaching staff on the recommendation of the college’s TMC-influenced governing body.

The way his writ ran on the campus despite holding no post—he passed out of the college in 2022—reflected the TMCP’s unwritten rule on the campus.

Ironically, Mishra had demanded death penalty to the rapist-murderer in the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital incident.

Power Without Accountability

The student union room has come in the survivour’s complaint repeatedly. It is where the assault first started. However, no student organisation should ideally have any access to the union room, as student union elections have not been held since 2014.

“Just imagine how much the security guard feared him that he did not intervene when a rape was happening in front of him,” says a student of the college, requesting anonymity. She adds, “There would be no justice until the administration acts against those who gave Mishra his might.”

It is not the case of this college alone. Student union elections have not taken place in any of the state’s colleges for over a decade now. Elections have been held only in Jadavpur University, Calcutta University, Presidency University and Rabindra Bharati University. However, no college, or any university in the district, has seen any student body election after 2014.

The elections in 2013 and 2014 witnessed large-scale violence, with the TMCP capturing most colleges from the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the CPI(M), which led the Left Front that ruled the state from 1977 to 2011.

While elections have not been conducted citing law & order issues, among others, the college union rooms have gone into the TMCP’s control—a power without accountability.

“We have long been demanding that the union rooms be locked up until colleges get an elected student body. The TMCP is illegally and unethically using the student union rooms and using them for various immoral activities,” says Mayukh Biswas, SFI’s outgoing all-India general secretary.

He said that the organisation would intensify movement to free union rooms from TMCP and speedy conduction of student body elections. “Students' voices have been muted by stopping elections,” Biswas alleges.

The BJP and its sister organisation, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, are also planning multiple protests. A BJP national team of senior leaders visited Kolkata to inquire about the incident. The National Commission for Women has taken suo motu cognisance. Public Interest Litigations have been filed in the Calcutta high court, seeking CBI investigation and campus security.

Photos circulated on social media showed Mishra standing next to several political heavyweights, including Banerjee’s nephew and TMC all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and minister Chandrima Bhattacharya.

“Everybody feared him. He had harassed and molested female students earlier, too, but none dared to complain. Everyone feared the ‘high connections’ he spoke about,” a second year student, unwilling to be named, tells 카지노.

While the TMC denied current links with Mishra, saying that he had been thrown out in 2021, college students and the chain of events say otherwise.

The TMC and the state administration promised swift, impartial and stringent action. However, two TMC leaders’ comments have triggered controversies. Veteran Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee said what could the police do if a friend raped another friend. MLA Madan Mitra said she should not have gone to the place alone–without at least two other friends accompanying her.

The TMC criticised and disowned their comments. Party Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra denounced their “disgusting comments.”