Beside the Hooghly River, once a centre of India’s culture and creativity under Tagore’s influence, West Bengal now faces a dark reality filled with fear and lawlessness.
Under the 13-year Trinamool Congress (TMC) dispensation led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the state has gained a grim reputation as a “rape state,” where crimes against women have become widespread and deeply rooted.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2022 report, West Bengal recorded 34,738 cases of crimes against women, placing it among the highest in absolute numbers nationwide.
This amounts to 71.8 incidents per 100,000 women, higher than the national average of 66.4. Rape cases alone numbered over 3,000 in the state out of India’s total 31,516, underscoring a disproportionate burden on Bengali women.
Preliminary reports for 2023 indicate a 15.3% rise in crimes against women from the previous year, with 2024 data showing no respite-over 4,000 rape and assault cases registered by mid-year, per state police figures.
By September 2025, with incidents such as the recent Panskura Hospital scandal still fresh in memory, experts estimate that the total number of crimes against women in West Bengal could cross 40,000 cases — a 20% increase from 2022. These figures are more than just numbers; they reflect broken lives, silenced voices, and a governance failure where political patronage outweighs public safety.
The NCRB data shows that West Bengal’s conviction rate stands at a mere 17%, significantly lower than the national average of 27%. This weak record has allowed many offenders—often alleged to have links with the TMC—to escape justice.
A 2024 study by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements pegs West Bengal’s “women’s risk index” at 8.2 out of 10, the highest in eastern India, factoring in low reporting rates (only 30% of assaults are filed due to intimidation) and institutional biases.
This growing sense of betrayal has sparked outrage across the country, with social media platform X (formerly Twitter) once trending with hashtags like #BengalRapeState, where users condemned the TMC’s alleged complicity. In a state once celebrated for Durga’s courage and strength, the goddess herself now seems abandoned.
The RG Kar Tragedy: Rape, Murder, and an Alleged Cover-Up
On the night of August 9, 2024, the seminar hall of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata turned from a place of learning into the scene of a horrific crime. A 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor, referred to as “Abhaya” in media reports to protect her identity, was brutally raped and murdered while on duty.
The autopsy report exposed shocking details — multiple fractures, bite marks, signs of strangulation, and evidence of prolonged assault. Her torn clothes and semi-nude body, found on a staircase, were staged to resemble suicide.
Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer with Kolkata Police, was later arrested as the prime accused, but the investigation soon exposed allegations of institutional complicity and political links reaching into the TMC’s inner circle.
The cover-up began almost immediately. The FIR was delayed for over 12 hours, with initial police claims dismissing it as suicide despite glaring inconsistencies.
Dr. Sandip Ghosh, the principal of the college and a figure known for his close ties to the TMC, was allegedly involved in tampering with evidence. Despite earlier corruption allegations, he had been appointed to the post and is accused of sanitizing the crime scene and pressuring staff to modify their statements. His wife’s role as a TMC candidate in local elections further blurred the line between the party and the administration.
Protests erupted nationwide, with junior doctors striking for 40 days, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe. The Calcutta High Court transferred the case to CBI in August 2024, uncovering financial irregularities at the hospital linked to TMC leaders, including MLA Atin Ghosh, raided in August 2025.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s response to the incident was seen by many as largely symbolic. She organized a women’s rally, yet blamed “external forces” for the violence that followed — even though mobs, allegedly including TMC supporters, vandalized the hospital and destroyed crucial evidence.
By January 2025, Sanjay Roy was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, but Abhaya’s parents voiced their discontent, claiming a larger conspiracy involving multiple perpetrators who were protected by the state.
“They killed her twice-once with hands, once with silence,” her father told The Hindu.
This tragedy was not an isolated case; it revealed a broader pattern under the TMC of manipulating the administration to silence victims. Protesting doctors were transferred, families threatened, and media coverage suppressed.
A year later, in August 2025, Abhaya’s memory was honored with torchlight vigils across Kolkata, yet justice remains elusive, as CBI investigations continue to be stalled due to state-level resistance.
Echoes of RG Kar: Kasba Law College Gang Rape and the TMC Student Wing Menace
Just ten months after the RG Kar tragedy, a similar horror unfolded on June 27, 2025, at South Calcutta Law College (Kasba).
A 24-year-old law student was lured into a seminar room under false pretenses and gang-raped by three men, including Manojit Mishra, a known member of the TMC student wing, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP). She was beaten with a hockey stick and threatened with the release of a video if she reported the crime.
In her distressing FIR, the victim recounted being held captive for hours, assaulted repeatedly, and threatened with death if she resisted.
The TMC’s reaction sparked outrage for victim-blaming. MP Manas Bhuniya claimed the victim had “provoked” the assault by attending late-night classes, while MLA Madan Mitra remarked, “If she hadn’t gone, this wouldn’t have happened,” provoking nationwide criticism. Even within the party, MP Mahua Moitra condemned the response as “embarrassing”, yet no internal accountability measures were taken.
Police delays in conducting DNA tests—which were filed only in August 2025—and the initial hesitation to register the case under POCSO raised suspicions of protecting the accused. The incident sparked protests across Kolkata, with students clashing with police, echoing the strikes that followed the RG Kar tragedy.
Reports from other colleges highlight similar assaults by party affiliates, with a 2025 study by Jadavpur University noting a 40% increase in campus harassment under the TMC’s dominance. The party’s failure to reform its student wing has fostered a culture where power overrides consent, turning Bengal’s educational institutions into unsafe spaces for students.
Post-Poll Terror: Sandeshkhali – Rape as a Political Tool in TMC’s Stronghold
In January 2024, the village of Sandeshkhali in the Sundarbans, under TMC block president Sheikh Shahjahan, erupted in outrage. Women came forward, alleging systematic rapes, land grabs, and trafficking carried out by Shahjahan’s gang. More than 200 complaints described nightly abductions to a “torture den”, where victims faced repeated assaults, beatings, and were forced to convert farmland into shrimp ponds benefiting TMC coffers.
Shahjahan remained at large for 55 days, during which his aides reportedly attacked ED teams conducting January 2024 raids over ration scams. In April 2024, the CBI took over the case following Calcutta High Court orders, filing FIRs for rapes and murders, including three killings linked to local resistance. The TMC dismissed the allegations as “BJP fabrications,” while allegedly coercing retractions through threats and bribes,” leading over 50 women to recant under duress.
The Shadow of Trafficking: Nine Minors Rescued from Kolkata’s Underbelly
On September 11, 2025, Kolkata Police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) conducted a raid on a run-down brothel in Burtolla, rescuing nine minor girls aged 12 to 17, who had been trafficked from impoverished villages in Jharkhand and Bihar.
The girls, sold for as little as Rs 5,000 each, were subjected to beatings, drugging, and forced prostitution, with forged passports used to avoid detection. The raid led to six arrests, including the brothel owners, who allegedly had ties to TMC and paid local leaders 20% kickbacks in exchange for protection.
This bust ties into NCRB’s 2022 data: West Bengal ranked third nationally with 1,261 human trafficking cases, up 25% from 2021, many involving minors funneled to Kolkata’s red-light districts.
Panskura Hospital and the Cycle of Institutional Rape
On September 15, 2025, Panskura Super Speciality Hospital in East Midnapore emerged as the latest example of institutional abuse. Facility manager Zahir Abbas Khan, allegedly linked to the TMC, was arrested for repeatedly raping contractual women staffers, including ward attendants who were lured to his office under the pretext of job threats.
Complaints were suppressed, as the hospital administration delayed filing FIRs, citing “internal matters.” Arrest occurred only after media exposure and intervention by the NCW, while Khan’s bail plea claimed he was a victim of “political vendetta.”
Local leaders defended him as a “community worker” and allegedly harassed victims to intimidate them into silence.
A State in Crisis: Atrocities Everywhere
In Murshidabad’s April 2025 violence over Waqf amendments, 500 residents fled clashes involving assaults on women-homes torched, girls abducted amid riots that BJP MLAs called “TMC-orchestrated terror.”
August 2025 saw Dinhata’s horror: an 8-month pregnant BJP worker kicked in the stomach by TMC assailants for “ideological dissent,” her home vandalized in a mob attack. “They said BJP women don’t deserve to breathe,” she told Times of India.
North 24 Parganas reports weekly assaults, Purba Medinipur’s rural belts see dowry deaths up 18% (NCRB 2022), with low convictions fueling impunity. National crimes rose 4% to 445,256 in 2022, but WB’s rate (66.4/100,000) climbed 15.3% in 2021 alone. A 2024 LSE study notes underreporting: actual figures 2-3x higher due to TMC intimidation.
The TMC’s influence is most evident in its protection of perpetrators and enforcement of silence. From tampered evidence at RG Kar to coerced retractions in Sandeshkhali, a pattern emerges: intimidation through threats, bribes, or transfers. In Kasba, victims endured harassment by goondas, while in Panskura, complaints disappeared into bureaucratic voids.
A Cry for Dawn: Reclaiming Bengal’s Soul
As September 2025 deepens, Bengal stands at a crossroads—a state where Durga’s flame flickers amid the ashes of betrayal under the TMC. From the bloodied halls of RG Kar to Sandeshkhali’s devastated fields, Kasba’s violated classrooms to Burtolla’s trafficked minors, Panskura’s institutional abuses to Murshidabad’s fleeing families, a tapestry of terror emerges—all bound by the TMC’s relentless grip.
A once-revered “Devi Kshetra” has been reduced to despair, where women’s cries go unheard, conviction rates remain at a dismal 17%, and perpetrators roam freely, often flaunting party affiliations.
With the 2026 assembly elections approaching, Bengal faces a referendum on accountability: will the state accept impunity or demand justice and change?
Agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the National Commission for Women (NCW) need to intervene and investigate crimes effectively, overcoming local political or administrative inaction.
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Legal reforms, including fast-track courts for speedy trials and robust witness protection, modeled on Delhi’s 2012 post-Nirbhaya measures, are essential to ensure justice is delivered quickly and securely.
