Madhuja Sen Roy, AhanaGanguli, Rupsa Saha and Ananya Niyogi

Student Activists

West Bengal

HRDA has issued an urgent appeal to the National Human Rights Commission of India on 30 March, regarding the illegal detention and custodial torture of women human rights defenders by the West Bengal police who were protesting against the corruption and irregularities done in the appointment of primary teachers in Kolkata, West Bengal on 10 March 2017. Ms. Madhuja Sen Roy, Ms. Ahana Ganguli, Ms. Rupsa Saha and Ms.Ananya Niyogi are students and youth activists. They are also active members of the Student Federation of India (SFI),the students’ wing of the CPI(M).

They, along with other activists, were protesting against the scam in the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) of primary school teachers on 9 March, 2017. They were charged with false allegations. Many students were arrested and brutally beaten up by the police under the ‘West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act’.

The four women were taken to jail in the Alipore Special Correctional Home for Women. On 10 March, 2017, they were stripped and searched, which consisted of highly objectionable groping of their bodies. They were subjected to the filthiest sexist abuse by the women police personnel and prison authorities. The groping and abuse was repeated on 14 March, 2017 also. The police and the prison authorities are guilty of blatant violation of all judicial norms regarding how to treat people in custody, especially women prisoners.