In a clear case of shooting the messenger, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday once again accused the media of exaggerating incidents of rapes and creating the impression that West Bengal has become the land of rapes.
Launching a scathing attack on the media, she said that it was exaggerating trivial matters for the sake of making profits. “I want to tell the media that it should not glorify rape. Today the way some news channels are constantly airing news about rape, small children are asking their parents the meaning of the word. This is not the culture of Bengal,” she added. Ms Banerjee was speaking on the occasion of the inauguration of the Puja issue of Trinamul Congress mouthpiece Jago Bangla at Nazrul Mancha.
Mercifully, Ms Banerjee did not repeat her usual charge that these rape incidents were sajano ghatana (fabricated incidents). Today, she seemed to convey to the media this message: do not give importance to reports of rapes.
Recently, a first-year student was drugged and gangraped inside the students’ union room of a polytechnic college in Asansol and the main accused in the case is a Trinamul Congress student leader.
The police has failed to arrest him and three other accused.
“Instead of announcing that her government will take strong action against culprits who are committing rapes, the chief minister tried to blame the media for highlighting such heinous crimes against women. This kind of government response encourages such crimes,” CPI(M) central committee member Mohammed Salim said.
Ms Banerjee also lambasted the media for reporting in graphic details incidents of murders and suicides which she claimed left an adverse impact on impressionable minds.