City of Protest, City of Silence

Kolkata – once the proud bastion of social reform, progressive politics, and feminist thought – is today grappling with a terrifying spike in sexual violence that cuts through class, religion, caste, and age. As of July 2025, recent figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau reveal that West Bengal has recorded a 12.6% rise in crimes against women from the previous year, with Kolkata, the urban nerve centre, contributing significantly to this trend. In the first half of 2024 alone, over 90 rape cases were registered in the city, with activists arguing that this figure is conservative, given the deep underreporting in marginalised communities. From well-lit neighborhoods like Salt Lake to the congested back alleys of Topsia and Metiabruz, women have come under siege – not just from perpetrators but from an apathetic state machinery that continues to treat rape not as a crisis but as an incident.

Legal experts, including those from the West Bengal Commission for Women, suggest that the institutional rot begins at the level of First Information Reports (FIRs) – many of which are delayed, denied, or manipulated, particularly when the accused enjoy political patronage. In May 2025, the Behala rape case involving a minor sparked outrage after police were accused of tampering with the complaint to avoid booking it under the POCSO Act. In another chilling incident, a young woman from a minority community in Tiljala was found dead near a canal after being gang raped. Her case remains unresolved, with her family’s pleas to the local station met with silence. These aren’t isolated stories – they’re a reflection of a wider system that criminalises victims, erases survivors, and shields abusers, especially when they come backed by muscle and money.

What is especially concerning is the demographic breakdown of these crimes. According to a recent study by the Calcutta Research Group, Dalit, Adivasi, and Muslim women are overrepresented in rape statistics, a chilling indicator of how caste and communal hierarchies operate within sexual violence. In the bordering districts of Nadia, North 24 Parganas, and Jalpaiguri – regions with significant cross-border migration – young girls are being trafficked into Kolkata’s cityscape and subjected to systematic abuse. The rescue of 56 women from a New Jalpaiguri-bound train earlier this week, suspected to be part of a larger trafficking ring stretching into Nepal and Bangladesh, is only the tip of a horrifying iceberg. Yet, even as rescue operations increase, prosecution remains dismal. Less than 10% of all trafficking-related sexual assault cases filed in the past two years have seen convictions, exposing the inefficiency of the judicial pipeline.

Nearly a year after the gruesome rape‑murder of a junior doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College on August 9, 2024, the wheels of justice have turned – slowly and unevenly. Sanjay Roy, a former civic volunteer turned accused, is the only individual convicted so far, sentenced to life imprisonment till death on January 20, 2025. The Sealdah court declined to impose the death penalty, reasoning the case did not qualify as “rarest of rare”. His appeal is pending before the Calcutta High Court, and the CBI is appealing for death sentence on the grounds that the crime warranted harsher punishment.

Yet the broader investigation raises far deeper concerns. The CBI, which took over the probe from Kolkata Police, admits to significant evidentiary gaps – notably due to suspected tampering at the crime scene. A restroom and nearby toilet, potential repositories of forensic evidence, were demolished the day after the incident, likely erasing crucial clues on chain of evidence. Parents of the victim have vocally accused the agency of lacking resolve, alleging that investigative momentum slowed dramatically once public protests waned: “When the protests stopped, CBI stopped working”, stated the victim’s father.

Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court has directed the CBI to submit the Kolkata Police case diary, along with a list of individuals interviewed, hinting at possible institutional cover‑ups or conspiracy. Lawyers have also questioned the CBI’s refusal to explore the possibility of gang rape, prompting fresh pleas from the family for renewed investigation. Amid this legal quagmire, former Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal – who came under scrutiny during the probe – has been exonerated by the court after apologizing for unintentionally revealing the victim’s identity, further fueling public suspicion of institutional immunity.

In this wake of delay and discord, the state government’s credibility has suffered. Opposition leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have accused the TMC of shielding perpetrators – claiming evidence was destroyed and crime‑scene investigations compromised by political interference. This is the state’s vociferous affair in the aftermath, ringing hollow before its actual administrative follow‑through.

This is not justice – it is justice deferred, diluted and dominated by institutional lethargy. When a crime of unthinkable violence led to only one conviction, and the investigation stalls amid public apathy, the miscarriage becomes the message. The crime scene demolition, the investigation slowdown, the unlikely exoneration of officials – all of it converges into an unsettling portrait: a system more invested in containment than accountability.

Not only does this case expose the state’s structural weakness, but it also illustrates a failure of political will – a troubling gap between public outrage and prosecutorial resolve. The verdict, albeit significant, is overshadowed by what remains unasked, unfound, and unresolved. This is not simply about whether one man goes to prison; it’s a question of whether institutions can be challenged – or whether power still shields the powerful.

West Bengal’s Kanyashree scheme, though lauded internationally, functions as a band-aid over a systemic hemorrhage. While awareness campaigns circulate in urban centres, rural Bengal remains mired in patriarchal silence, where families fear stigma more than they seek justice.

The same city that once led India’s feminist discourse, today, finds itself trapped in a spiral of denial and decline. Political parties -from the ruling Trinamool to the BJP opposition – have weaponised women’s bodies as electoral talking points but rarely translated outrage into durable reforms. TMC’s public condemnation of the recent surge in rapes is hollowed by its failure to hold its own cadres accountable in earlier scandals. Meanwhile, the BJP’s rhetoric around “women’s safety” collapses under the weight of its communal dog-whistles, which often criminalise interfaith relationships rather than address structural gaps in policing and justice.

Civil society, NGOs, and student groups continue to fight back. Protests have erupted at College Street, Jadavpur University, and outside Lalbazar Police Headquarters, demanding action, accountability, and gender-sensitisation across the system. Survivors have begun reclaiming their narratives online through anonymous storytelling platforms and feminist collectives. Yet, these movements exist in a hostile environment, with female activists often facing threats, doxxing, and digital harassment.

What Kolkata needs now is not another slogan or token gesture. It needs a state-wide audit of gender justice – beginning with police reform, expanding into education and urban planning, and culminating in a justice system that recognises rape not as a private crime but a political act. Until that happens, the city’s claim to moral modernity remains hollow. Every delayed FIR, every dismissed testimony, every compromised investigation pushes the city one step closer to collapse – not just of law, but of its very soul.

Because when a woman cannot walk home safely in a city that prides itself on its “adda” and “aesthetic”, then that city must look into the mirror – not to mourn its past, but to confront its failure in the present.