West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee says that what CPM cadres did in Nandigram is “morally and legally justifiable.” His comrades in New Delhi today argued that Nandigram is a “state subject” unlike the Gujarat rapes and murders of 2002 and, therefore, could not be discussed in Parliament.

Perhaps, the comrades should listen to Sabina Begum. For, hers is the first officially confirmed case of gangrape allegedly by armed CPM cadres on November 6, during their “Operation Recapture” in Nandigram.

Her two daughters went missing soon after the gangrape that night. In chilling testimony to The Indian Express, Sabina has said that after she was raped, she saw her daughters, Fatima, 16, and Nasreen, 14, raped as well and then abducted by CPM cadres. All the three names have been changed to protect their identities.

This gruesome incident, according to the police complaint, occurred in Satengabari, one of the villages that bore the brunt of the CPM’s terror. When The Indian Express visited the village yesterday, it found 160 of the 240 houses either burnt or badly damaged. Most of the residents are huddled in the Brojomohan school relief camp.

“We have initiated a case of rape and I cannot say anything more,” said S S Panda, Superintendent of Police, East Midnapore. “Doctors have confirmed that Sabina was raped. I personally took her statement yesterday at the Tamluk sub-divisional hospital. We have registered a case of gangrape against the accused. She has given us names in her statement but I cannot disclose the names right now. We have also attached the case of her two missing daughters with the gangrape case,” Champak Chowdhury, Officer-in-Charge of Nandigram police station, told The Indian Express.

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