A NEW SHAME FOR TMC

Another horrible rape rocks Kolkata. That the prime accused is with the TMC surprises no one, fuelling protests across the city

- By Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

ANOTHER VIOLENT MALE predator, another victim. A symbolic pairing, but also a very real one, it restores to Kolkata the dark shadows cast over it by the chilling rape-cum-murder at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital last August. On June 25, the South Calcutta Law College at Kasba saw a near-replay. Talk is again about the links of the accused to power. Outraged Kolkatans are again protesting. The state assembly election is a year closer, so the air is again thick with politics. The lucky piece of divergence: the victim lives to tell the tale.

It had unfolded like any other term-day for the 24-year-old—deceptively ordinary. She reached campus past noon, filled up her first-sem exam forms, went to the common room for a spot of rest. That’s when Monojit Mishra entered. All of 31, ex-student and omnipresent lout, with a history of sexual bullying and all-purpose goonery but immune to disciplining or banishment because, as the girl’s complaint letter described it, he’s officially part of the college and, “unofficially”, the head of its TMCP (Trinamool Chhatra Parishad) unit—so he “holds much power...everyone listens to him”.

ACCUSED NO. 1

• MONOJIT MISHRA, 31, prime accused in the Kasba rape, is an ex-student of South Calutta Law College and informally headed its TMC student unit