While Christians in Ranaghat insist that ghar wapsi was behind the robbery and rape of a nun at a local convent, the West Bengal CID believes a gang of Bangladeshis was behind the robbery and rape.
Indrani Roy/Rediff.com reports from Kolkata.
The Ranaghat robbery and rape case has once highlighted how porous the India-Bangladesh border is.
West Bengal's Criminal Investigation Department last week arrested two men -- Mohammad Salim and Gopal Sarkar -- for their alleged involvement in the March 14 incident where a gang of 10 to 12 men robbed Ranaghat's Convent of Jesus and Mary, raped the 72-year-old Mother Superior and desecrated the convent's place of worship.
Salim and Sarkar are residents of Jessore in Bangladesh.
While Sarkar has been living illegally in Nadia since 2002 with his wife Anita, detectives said Salim frequently sneaked into Bengal's North 24 Parganas district in search of 'odd jobs.'
Salim is allegedly involved in several robberies in Bengal over the last 12 months.
After interrogating the duo, the state CID released the names of other suspects -- Milon, Babu, Habib, Farooque, Fakir, Manik, Nazoor and Tuhin.
Milon, Anita Sarkar's uncle, allegedly masterminded the Ranaghat robbery, the CID sources said.
According to the CID, either Salim or Milon raped the nun. Though Salim is learnt to have confessed to the robbery, he has not mentioned rape.
Gopal Sarkar, a mason by training, was recently hired by the convent, the sources said. He gathered information about the convent and passed it on to his associates. Detectives are probing if Sarkar has been a regular informer for his Bangladeshi associates.
The CID is also exploring if Sarkar had links with the security guard who was dismissed by the convent authorities for misconduct.
The gang that robbed the convent reportedly lived in Gopal Sarkar's home for about a week before the crime. They attended a wedding at Sarkar's home and contributed Rs 5,000 as a gift, CID sources told Rediff.com
After committing the crime at the convent, the gang split up. While some thugs crossed over to Bangladesh via Murshidabad, others traveled to other parts of India, detectives said.
If the criminals had Bengali/Bangladeshi antecedents, who were the thugs who spoke in Hindi? Did they speak in Hindi to deceive the convent staff? Or did the gang have some north Indians as its members?
Maria Fernandes, vice chairperson, West Bengal Minorities Commission, had told Rediff.com that some gang members "were speaking in heavily accented Hindi and casually mentioned that they hailed from Punjab."
Convent insiders confirmed this information to this correspondent when she visited Ranaghat on March 21.
If robbery was the sole motive of the gang, the criminals could have fled with the money without harming either the Mother Superior or desecrating the convent's place of worship.
While Christians in Ranaghat believe ghar wapsi (conversion) was the reason for the crime, detectives feel the rape was a consequence of the robbery.
Robberies in Bengal's border towns, detectives say, have often ended in sexual assault.
"No matter what the CID claims," a Christian resident of Ranaghat told Rediff.com over the telephone, "the gang wanted to insult Christians."
"Else, the Mother Superior would not have been raped and our place of worship ransacked," he added, insisting that his name not be published in this report.
Nuns at the Convent of Jesus and Mary had registered a police complaint in late February about receiving threatening calls, a source had informed Rediff.com on March 21.
There has been a rise in robberies and car thefts in Bengal towns bordering Bangladesh.
Detectives are currently investigating scores of robberies that occurred between the Gede border in Nadia and Hingalganj in the North 24 Parganas district last year.
The Ranaghat case has highlighted these robberies that would otherwise likely been mere entries in the police register. The CID would like to know if the gang that attacked the convent on March 14 had any links to those crimes.
Bangladeshi criminals have a free run across the porous border. When this correspondent visited Taki, an Indian outpost on the border, residents of the area said: "Lok ashe opar theke, ki korbe peter tan je (People keep coming from Bangladesh. After all, they have to earn a living)."
Image: A CCTV grab of the suspects at the Ranaghat convent.
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