Proof in feathers

Krishnagar, July 1: A 35-year-old widow was stripped and thrashed at a Nadia marketplace after a well-to-do farmer found a few feathers at her home and claimed they belonged to his missing duck.

Sabina Bewa (name changed), beaten with sticks in the crowded village square market at Bhaluka, about 100km from Calcutta, is in hospital with severe injuries.

The woman, brought to the Shaktinagar district hospital hours after her humiliation on Friday evening, lodged a complaint with police yesterday.

Officers said Alek Sheikh, 35, had lost one of his ducks on Wednesday and suspected Sabina, a farm labourer, of having stolen it.

On Friday morning, he turned up at her home for a search.

“Sabina didn’t protest. While looking around the dwelling, Alek spotted a few feathers which he claimed belonged to his lost duck. He showed them to a few other villagers and demanded that Sabina be punished,” a police officer said.

Alek demanded a shalishi (a village council meeting to settle disputes) and got one the same day.

The village elders did not rule out that Sabina stole the duck but would not fine her.

“We asked Alek not to raise a hue and cry on the matter, because Sabina was too poor to replace the duck,” said Hossainur Sheikh, a 55-year-old farmer who attended the meeting.

Alek left grumbling but turned up at Sabina’s home with a group of men around 7 in the evening.

The gang dragged her to the market, beating her all the while, Sabina has alleged. “There were about 100 people there. Alek stripped me of my sari and the gang continued to beat me,” she said from her hospital bed.

“I pleaded with the crowd with folded hands to save me but none came forward. It must have been an hour before I fell unconscious.”

The crowd began to thin. A group of local youths on their way back from work took her to the hospital.

Yesterday, the youths related the incident to the local CPM panchayat chief, Purnima Bag, who informed the police.

Sunil Guha, the inspector in charge of Kotwali police station, recorded Sabina’s complaint at the hospital and, hours later, a police team went to the village and arrested Alek. “We are looking for his accomplices,” Guha said.

He added: “The woman has nobody to turn to. She is childless and her father died many years ago. Her mother, who lives in nearby Simulgachhi, is a mental patient.”