JOIN USBihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday met the family of the rape-and-murder victim from Madhyamgram in West Bengal, and offered them rehabilitation in the state.
The family was originally from Samastipur in Bihar, but had settled in Kolkata, where the victim’s father is a taxi driver. His daughter was raped in Kolkata on October 26 and then again gang-raped on October 27 — the day she lodged a police complaint against the culprit.
The family then shifted to the Dum Dum area. The accused, however, got the wind of their shift of residence, and set the girl ablaze on December 23. The girl succumbed to her burns on December 31, leading to widespread protests and condemnation in West Bengal as well as Bihar.
Her parents had met President Pranab Mukherjee seeking justice, besides filing a petition in the Calcutta High Court demanding a CBI probe.
Meanwhile, after coming to know that the victim was originally from Bihar and had been eking out a livelihood in the neighbouring state, Nitish rushed a senior IPS officer to West Bengal to hand over a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the victim’s family.
This infuriated the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, which is in power in that state.