Kolkata, 19 April

A delegation of the National Commission for Women (NCW), led by its chairman Vijaya Rahatkar, met the riot-affected people in West Bengal's Murshidabad district on Saturday and assured them that all steps would be taken by the Centre to ensure their safety in future.

The affected women narrated their plight during the violent days and demanded that permanent BSF camps be set up in select areas of the district and an NIA probe into the recent communal clashes, which claimed three lives.

Rahatkar said, "I am dumbfounded by the agony these women are having to suffer. What they went through during the violence is beyond imagination."

The NCW chief told the victims that there was "no cause for worry" as the Centre was beside them.

"We have come here to see your plight. Please don't worry. The country and the commission are beside you all. Don't feel that you are alone," Rahatkar told the victims at Betbona village.

During the visit to the village by the NCW members, the riot-affected women broke down before them.

The villagers were seen holding placards that displayed messages - 'We don't want Lakshmir Bhandar, we want BSF camp. We want security'.

'We are under attack, ' read another placard.

NCW member Archana Majumdar told reporters that the commission would report to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and convey the demand of the riot-affected women for setting up BSF camps there.

BJP MLA Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, who was accompanying the NCW team, told PTI Videos, "This is my constituency, Dakshin Malda. I have been contesting from here for the last 12 years, and what I have seen this time is unprecedented. I had never seen violence on such a scale here in the last 12 years."

The NCW team also visited the Dhulian area of the Murshidabad district, which witnessed violence on a massive scale during protests against amendments to the Waqf Act on April 11 and 12.

The NCW team had also visited a relief camp in Malda district on Friday and met those displaced by the Murshidabad riots.

The commission had assessed the condition of women affected by the recent communal violence in parts of the state.

“From what we’ve seen so far, the situation is extremely distressing. We can feel their pain and suffering," the NCW chief said.

The NCW had earlier taken suo motu cognisance of the violence that broke out in Shamsherganj, Suti, Dhulian, and Jangipur areas of Murshidabad on 11 and 12 April.

Three people were killed and hundreds rendered homeless during the clashes, which occurred in Muslim-majority areas, amid protests against amendments to the central Waqf Act.