The body of a 32-year old Bangladeshi woman, Nargis, was recovered from a railway station in India and was handed over to her family by the immigration police at Benapole on April 20. The victim’s family alleged that she was abducted, raped, and killed. However, police said they had yet to find any definitive proof as to how she died.
Nargis took her blind mother, Manimala, and her daughter, Kakoli, to India on March 9 for her mother’s treatment. They went to Kolkata through the Benapole check-post and took a train to New Delhi. Nargis requested a few young male passengers in the compartment to inform her on the arrival of the train in Delhi.
Around 3:30am, the men told Nargis that the train had reached Delhi and she got down there with her mother and daughter. “As soon as we got off, the men abducted my daughter. I am blind. I could not see what was happening. All I could hear were my daughter’s screams. The train left after a while. I kept crying and asking for help,” Manimala told the police.
“We spent a few days waiting for my daughter to come back to the station. We learned later that we had gotten off at Kanpur. When she did not return, I came back to Bangladesh with my granddaughter on March 16 -- illegally because Nargis had all our passports,” Manimala further explained. On March 19, Sonadanga police contacted the family and informed her that Indian police had found Nargis’ body in a railway station.
This is not the first incident of its kind in India. The gang rape of an Indian student, who later died, aboard a private bus in Delhi in December 2012 caused mass outrage in India and received worldwide media attention.
Four men were sentenced to death for the brutal gang rape and murder. Judge Yogesh Khanna, who awarded the judgement, said it was important that the men were given exemplary punishment to put a stop to the type of “gruesome” sex crimes which had become “rampant” in India.
Three months after this incident, a Swiss woman was gang-raped by eight men in front of her husband while they were camping in a remote region in Madhya Pradesh. A week later, a female British tourist suffered leg injuries after she jumped out of a hotel window over fears of a sex attack in Agra. The government of India deserves credit for taking prompt actions to bring all the culprits to justice.
The accused persons in the case of the Madhya Pradesh incident were tried in a fast-track court and sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2013.
These incidents, however, had a negative impact on tourism in India. The number of female tourists, particularly from Western countries, dropped significantly soon after the incidents. Nargis was obviously unaware of the risks involved in travelling without a male escort.
While the incidents involving the Indian and European citizens received worldwide attention in news media and social networks, the tragic death of poor Nargis went practically unnoticed, except by the news media in Bangladesh.
I did not notice any statements from Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the matter. There was no protest by any human rights group in Bangladesh. Why was there so much apathy in this case? Is it because poor people deserve no justice?
The Bangladesh government has sought details from India regarding the death of Nargis.
“We have already established contact with the concerned department of the government of India, seeking details about the incident,” the deputy high commissioner of Bangladesh in New Delhi said. “New Delhi has not yet responded ... we are waiting for a reply.”
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh police chief said that Nargis was not raped. According to the post-mortem report, she was killed after she had been run over by a train, he claimed.
The incident deserves further investigation as many questions remain unanswered. Did the Indian police investigate who kidnapped Nargis and for what purpose? How could the incidence of a forceful abduction escape the attention of the railway police? Prompt action could perhaps have saved Nargis. Was her death an accident, a suicide, or a homicide? Was any autopsy done by the Bangladesh police in view of the allegations made by the victim’s family?
These are very pertinent questions which must be addressed by the respective authorities.
Scores of poor families from Bangladesh visit India for treatment or other purposes, often without male escorts. If there is any lax of security, even a male escort becomes helpless. They often become victims of fraud, rape, or murder. In many cases, the culprits are never caught.
We hope that the government of Bangladesh will pursue the matter seriously, in cooperation with the government of India, till Nargis’ family gets justice. It is important, not only for the sake of justice, but also to prevent similar crimes in the future.