Durgapur ‘gang rape’: BJP leaders leave out non-Muslim name from list of accused; give communal spin to crime

&

Reacting to the alleged gang rape of an MBBS student in West Bengal’s Durgapur, leader of Opposition and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikai on October 12 claimed on X that four persons — Sheikh Nasim Uddin, Sheikh Riyaz Uddin, Sheikh Ferdaus and Sheikh Safikul — had been named as accused in the case.

A 23-year-old student of a private medical college was allegedly gang-raped on Friday, October 10, evening in Durgapur, about 170 km from Kolkata. According to a statement released by the institute, the survivor, a second-year student, left the campus for dinner with another student around 7:58 pm. Following this, “One of them returned at 8:42 pm, but after loitering around the main exit area for around 5-6 minutes, he stepped out again at about 8:48 pm. The two then returned together at 9:29 p.m. The female student proceeded toward the Girls Hostel at around 9:31 pm. Later, it came to light that the female student, while she was outside campus, bad endured an assault — an occurrence she has herself claimed and reported.”

Coming close on the heels of the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata in August 2024 and the alleged rape of a student at the South Calcutta Law College in June this year, the Durgapur incident saw all Opposition parties coming down heavily on the Mamata Banerjee-government.

While sharing his post on X, Adhikari implied that all the accused in the case were Muslims. (Archive)

BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya amplified Adhikari’s tweet and remarked that the reason Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee indulged in victim blaming instead of blaming the accused was because the accused were Muslims. This is in reference to Banerjee’s remarks on the incident, wherein she stated that girl students residing in hostels should not venture out at night and must protect themselves. (Archive to Malviya’s tweet)

Andhra Pradesh BJP vice-president Vishnu Vardhan Reddy also shared the Muslim names in a tweet and called for their arrest. (Archive)

Right Wing influencers @MrSinha_ and @MeghUpdates also shared these Muslim names as the names of accused in the case. In a report, News18, while quoting officials, mentioned the same four names and stated that they had been arrested. (Archive)

Several others amplified the claim that only Muslims were the accused in the case. X User Hindutva Knight (@HPhobiaWatch) suggested West Bengal police “Can’t reveal the name of Rapists” as they were Muslims. Another user, @SquintNeon, claimed four persons had been arrested, namely Sheikh Nasim Uddin, Sheikh Riyaz Uddin, Sheikh Ferdaus and Sheikh Safikul. (Archives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

X user Prashant Umrao, who is a BJP spokesperson and advocate-on-record at Supreme Court according to his bio, wrote on X, “In Durgapur, Sheikh Naseemuddin, Sheikh Riyazuddin, Firdaus, and Sheikh Safikul abducted an MBBS student from the Medical College of Bengal and gang-raped her…”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Fact Check

Durgapur (East) deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Abhishek Gupta stated that three arrests had been made and that the arrested men had been forwarded to court as of October 12.

 

According to an Indian Express report, police had identified the arrested men as Apu Bauri (21), Firdous Shiekh (23), and Sheikh Riazuddin (32). Several other news outlets reported this. (Here, here, here and here.) The other two individuals mentioned in the claims above, Sheikh Nasim Uddin and Sheikh Safikul, were not among the arrested persons.

Alt News spoke to DCP Gupta, who confirmed that Apu Bauri had been arrested in the case and produced in court. “No one named Safikul had been arrested yet,” he told Alt News at 5.57pm on October 12. Another officer, who did not wish to be named, confirmed the same to Alt News. He also told us that police were on the lookout for at least one more accused.

To sum up, many BJP politicians and Right-wing influencers chose not to mention the name Apu Bauri while listing the names of the accused in the alleged Durgapur gang-rape case. By doing this they suggested or directly claimed that the accused or arrested persons in the case were all Muslims. This is false. The claim that the names of the arrested persons were not released is also baseless.

Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.

Donate Now