In the Sandeshkhali case, a woman says the TMC leaders forced her to sign blank documents and withdraws her rape complaint

A Sandeshkhali lady retracted her accusation of rape against leaders of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). She said on Wednesday that she was coerced by BJP employees to sign a blank piece of paper.

The lady, who had not been raped, was reportedly made to sign a blank piece of paper in front of the National Commission for Women (NCW) team in February on the directions of local BJP officials. She subsequently learned that this was a rape allegation.

The lady went on to claim that the BJP had orchestrated the whole Sandeskhali affair in order to disparage the TMC ahead of the current Lok Sabha elections. After five or six days, she said, the police came to her residence to look into the allegation against the TMC leader and brought her to the court to give a testimony. It was then that she realized she had signed a rape complaint.

The woman said that Sheikh Shahjahan and his men had not paid her for her housework, which is why she had joined the Sandeshkhali protest in February. Piyali Das and a few other local BJP activists talked with her around the same time. They brought me up in front of the NCW members and had me sign a piece of white paper. I signed the blank page as instructed by them and went home,” she claimed to reporters, as cited by the Telegraph.

When the police arrived at my house a few days later, I discovered that the complaint was about a rape that had not happened to me. I had no choice but to go before the court and tell my story. I said I wasn’t raped,” she continued.

“The ladies now claim that they were instructed to submit a false statement in the lawsuit. The ladies want to retract their grievances because they are untrue.Yesterday, Suvendu Adhikari was in Bankura for a meeting. TMC leader Shashi Panja said, “During this, female Trinamool employees shouted some slogans, and Suvendu Adhikari, influenced by this, mistreated them.”

TMC recently published a video purporting to show a local BJP politician acknowledging that, at the behest of BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, women in Sandeshkhali were bribed Rs 2,000 each to report cases of rape and sexual abuse.