Mamata Banerjee Leads Candlelight March After Rape-Murder of 11-Year-Old in Baruipur

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took to the streets on Monday evening, leading a candlelight march in response to the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Baruipur, a case that has rapidly escalated into one of the most charged political controversies in the state this year. The child was last spotted in CCTV footage before the crime, and the subsequent discovery of what investigators described as a lynching element has deepened public outrage.

The BJP has identified the Baruipur case as its first major political test against the ruling TMC in Bengal, drawing comparisons to the Kolkata doctor rape-murder case that triggered mass protests last year. The party has accused the state government of failing to protect women and has demanded accountability from the Mamata administration.

The march itself was not without drama. Rebel TMC MP Saayoni Ghosh, who has publicly broken with the party leadership on several issues, was greeted with hostile chants of 'Gaddar' (traitor) and 'Beimaan' (dishonest) by sections of the crowd, exposing deep fissures within the TMC ranks on how to handle the fallout.

With the BJP mounting its campaign and TMC facing internal dissent, the Baruipur case threatens to dominate Bengal's political discourse for weeks. The Chief Minister's decision to personally lead the march is widely seen as an attempt to reclaim the moral high ground on women's safety — an issue on which the TMC has faced sustained criticism since the RG Kar hospital case.