West Bengal girl’s death sparks protests and political blame game

Police in West Bengal’s Baruipur area formed a Special Investigation Team after the body of an 11-year-old girl was found in a pond on Sunday, July 5, in South 24 Parganas district, about 30 km from Kolkata. The girl had gone missing on Saturday afternoon, and local residents and her family alleged she had been raped and murdered.

The discovery triggered violent protests, road blockades and clashes with police as anger spread through the area. A mob allegedly lynched a local man suspected in the crime, while police later said one innocent person was also killed by the crowd. Reuters reporting said officers arrested dozens of people for violence and vandalism during the unrest, deepening the sense that the case had already moved beyond a single investigation into a wider breakdown of order.

West Bengal police said the Special Investigation Team was handling the probe, and later reports said three people had been arrested in connection with the killing. The National Commission for Women took suo motu cognisance of the case and asked the West Bengal director general of police for an action-taken report within seven days. The commission also sought details on the registration of the first information report under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the POCSO Act, along with the progress of the investigation and arrests.

The case quickly became a political flashpoint in the state. Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee accused BJP supporters of disrupting her party’s protest march over the girl’s death and said the police were acting as an “arm” of the saffron party. BJP and TMC workers later clashed during protest rallies in Kolkata, turning the city into another stage for the fight over who bears responsibility for women’s safety and public anger.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari visited the family and promised capital punishment for the accused. He also gave police a 72-hour deadline to report any lapses and said the government was working to ensure such incidents do not happen anywhere in Bengal.

The outrage in Baruipur has tapped into a larger national pattern: each new atrocity over women’s safety revives memories of earlier protests, from the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder to the 2024 uproar after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The scale of the protests in South 24 Parganas suggests that public anger is now driven not only by one brutal crime but by a longer record of distrust in policing, justice delivery and state protection.