Kolkata, Oct 11 (IANS) West Bengal Leader of Opposition (LoP) and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari said on Saturday that the state should follow Uttar Pradesh’s model of taking decisive measures in awarding punishment to the guilty accused of rape.

The stern reaction from the BJP leader came after a second-year medical student from Odisha was allegedly gang-raped outside the campus of a private medical college and hospital in West Burdwan district’s Durgapur on Friday evening.

Addressing a news conference, LoP Adhikari said, “The accused should not be kept in custody for long. He should be eliminated at the earliest. Encounters should be conducted only after the arrest of the accused on serious criminal charges like rape.”

He noted that arrest alone cannot be the final word in cases of rape or violence against women.

“We have to take active steps like Chief Ministers — Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh, Devendra Fadnavis of Maharashtra, Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, N. Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh,” LoP Adhikari said.

According to the police, the medical student had stepped out of the college campus with a male friend for dinner on Friday night when a group of young men on motorcycles began stalking them and passing objectionable remarks.

The men allegedly chased away the male friend, dragged the woman medical student to a forested area behind the campus, and gang-raped her, police added.

The accused also snatched thw woman’s mobile phone and threw it away.

The police have initiated the case based on the complaint lodged by the woman medical student.

The male friend of the victim has been detained for questioning by the police.

LoP Adhikari also questioned the silence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the rape incident.

Demanding a statement from CM Banerjee on the rape incident, the Nandigram BJP MLA said, “Such incidents are happening repeatedly. The Chief Minister talks about everything. But now she doesn’t say anything when such heinous incidents take place in the state. The Chief Minister has not said anything over the violence against women since the Kasba rape incident. Why is she (CM Banerjee) silent on the violence against women?”

He also added that the BJP will organise a ‘bigger movement’ to protest on the violence against women in the state.

–IANS

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