By Arun Nair
The gang rape of a 24-year-old law student at a Kolkata college last month rekindled the shock and outrage of the August 2024 rape-murder of a postgraduate resident at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Ironic as it may seem, the main accused was among those who had called for the death penalty for the accused in the RG Kar case. In the height of protest over RG Kar rape, Monojit Mishra – who reportedly showed a special liking for sexual depravity and violence – shared a Facebook a video of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leading a protest march with the caption, “We demand noose for the rapist, we demand justice, not drama, we demand justice without delay, we demand noose for the guilty.” His post, shared on August 16, described the Trinamool leader as Agnikanya (meaning fiery daughter). Less than a year later, people are raising similar slogans against Monojit, who is the main accused in a chilling case of rape on the campus of the law college in Kolkata. An alumnus of South Calcutta Law College, Manojit was president of the Trinamool Congress’s student wing before it was dissolved. He was working there as a contractual staff. While the Trinamool has now distanced itself from Monojit, photographs available in public domain showed him with several leaders of the state’s ruling party. Monojit Mishra is reported to have had a huge influence on the campus, to the extent that even teachers and office staff feared him. According to reports, multiple complaints of harassment and molestation had been registered against him in the past, but no action was taken. The RG Kar Hospital rape-murder case had sparked nationwide outrage and the investigation was handed over to the CBI after a Calcutta High Court order. In January this year, a Kolkata court convicted the accused, Sanjay Roy, to life imprisonment. ALSO READ: Kolkata Gang Rape Accused Was ‘Terror for Students’, Showed Liking For Sexual Depravity The gang rape of the first-year student less than a year later has put the Trinamool government in a spot, with the Opposition questioning the law and order in the state. “The TMC is a party of rape sympathiser, rape enablers and serial offenders,” BJP co-incharge for West Bengal Amit Malviya charged in a post on X. Besides Monojit Mishra, current students Pratim Mukherjee and Zaid Ahmed and a security guard have been arrested in the case so far. ‘Video Recording of Rape Was Planned By Accused’ The Kolkata Police has formed a five-member SIT to probe the case. The police suspected that the law college student was gang-raped since she turned down the marriage proposal of the main accused, another officer said. Investigating officials probing the rape revealed that Monojit Mishra targeted the survivor in a pre-planned manner and the two other accused – Zaid Ahmed and Pratim Mukherjee – became active facilitators in this well-thought-out crime, news agency IANS reported. IANS reported, quoting sources, that both Ahmed and Mukhopadhyay have admitted that the video recording of the crime was part of a well-thought-out crime to blackmail the survivor so that the latter did not approach the police or reveal to anyone about what happened on that night. “Several such videos were stored in the mobile phones of the three accused, especially that of Mishra, which hints towards their addition of such items,” a source revealed, according to IANS.