JP Nadda, the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has formed a five-member team to investigate the alleged gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Hanskhali, West Bengal.
The girl’s family claims she was gang-raped on April 4 and was given a death certificate after a hasty cremation with no post-mortem. The main accused is the son of a ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader.
Nadda has asked the team, which includes Rekha Verma, a Member of Parliament, and Baby Rani Maurya, an Uttar Pradesh minister, to submit a report as soon as possible.
The TMC and the West Bengal government did not respond right away.
Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal’s chief minister, rejected another BJP fact-finding committee’s report on the violence in Birbhum last month. She claimed that the report, which was submitted to Nadda, would influence and derail the CBI’s investigation into the incident.
In the aftermath of the murder of a local TMC leader on March 21, nine people were killed in an arson attack in Birbhum.
