Woman in city hospital tells tale of brutality

KOLKATA: Her right arm is bandaged, but the small portions that are visible look scary enough. The inner white skin, and sometimes even bare flesh is exposed in striped patches.
She got the marks from branding with red-hot iron. Other parts of her body also bear marks of brutality. She is too weak to speak in an audible voice. Ask her what had happened, and if one listens carefully, one could hear her uttering in broken Bangla, "Aar bolte parchhi na.Kashto hochchhe (I can''t say more. It hurts)."
Nirodi Besra, 38, has been brought to the J N Roy Hospital in Kolkata from the Baliajore village in Dumka district of Jharkhand. When she was admitted here on July 10, she was in a miserable state. Besides her physical and mental trauma, she was suffering from acute anaemia and malnutrition. Her haemoglobin count had dropped to six per cent. She received blood transfusion on both Wednesday and Thursday, said Dr Ranabir Talukdar who is treating her.
Many women like her have been subjected to brutality by the landlords and ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha men in the villages of the Santhal Parganas, Pradip Banerjee, West Bengal state secretary of the CPI(ML) told TNN. The party is spearheading a movement by the tribals in the region for minimum wages and due share of the yield for sharecroppers.
Nirodi and her husband Katra Besra were also sharecroppers and demanded their dues. For this crime, the landlords'' men attacked their village. They destroyed 28 huts, dragged Nirodi away and branded her. She became unconscious and they left her assuming she was dead.
According to Banerjee and his party''s Jharkhand state committee member Nishapati Ankure, the landlord-cadre forces also stripped and paraded Maklu Tudu, a woman of neighbouring Amgari village and raped Chhabi Ray of Pathrepara village and a pregnant Malati Ray of Gurmala village.
The incidents have been going on since June 17. The police, they alleged, have arrested 58 villagers, among them the raped women, instead of arresting the culprits.