Kolkata: Bengal Congress MPs on Saturday ridiculed the demand by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that the Centre should enact more stringent laws to deal with the perpetrators of rape and other such heinous crimes.
"I want to ask if the perpetrator of Hetal Parekh rape case could be hanged using the present laws then why the government is still not able to arrest the main accused in the Park Street incident," Minister of state for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told a Congress meeting here.
Alleging that the West Bengal government was now trying to cover up the Park Street rape case, Chowdhury said "the state government had miserably failed to arrest the main accused in the case which took place almost 10 months ago."
Another Congress MP Deepa Dasmunshi also pointed out that since the Park Street incident, the government had been unable to arrest the main accused.
"Now the chief minister wants the Centre to enact strong laws. I ask whether the present laws allow the government to make arrests or not?" she questioned.
Reacting to the death of the rape victim early this morning in Singapore, Banerjee said that the Centre should enact more stringent laws as the present legislations were outdated.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, December 29, 2012, 16:23