Kolkata rape victim's family to meet the president on January 7

KOLKATA: The family of the 16-year-old rape victim will meet the President Pranab Mukherjee on January 7, sources close to the family said on Saturday. "We will demand a CBI investigation into the death of the girl during our meeting with the President," said a member of the family.

The death of the girl has created a flutter in Bengal politics as the girl and her family hail from Bihar and the Bihar chief minister Nityish Kumar had sent one of his senior police official to Kolkata to meet the family and give some financial help. Kumar also assured the family to help it to get rehabilitation in Bihar. But the family has decided to stay back in West Bengal and fight the legal battle against Mamata Banerjee's government.

On Saturday, a BJP women delegation from Bihar met the family and promised all sorts of help. The girl, who was raped on October last year, died in a government-run hospital in Kolkata on December 31. The miscreants had set her house on fire and the girl had received serious burn injuries. In a confessional statement to the police from her death bed, the girl had alleged that two youths had set her on fire and the police has now started a murder case against the arrested persons on the basis of the girl's statement.

Mamata Banerjee's government on Friday had reacted sharply at Kumar's act of sending his official to Kolkata without consulting her government. Trinamool Congress had also raised objections as the victim girl's family had taken shelter in the CPIM's party office.