Burdwan, March 3: Two youths were today arrested in connection with the alleged rape of a woman in Burdwan's Katwa last Saturday, a complaint that chief minister Mamata Banerjee had claimed was "sajano(staged)". District police chief S.M.H. Meerza said Nayan Sheikh and Farid Sheikh, in their 40s, were picked up from Chowhera village in Birbhum's Labhpur early today following an overnight raid. "We have slapped rape charges on Nayan and Farid. Prima facie, it appears that the duo were involved in the crime," Meerza added. The two were produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate's court, which remanded them in 10 days' police custody. The 35-year-old woman, who works in a sewing centre in Birbhum, was allegedly abducted from a Katwa-bound train and raped in a field nearby. But three days later, Mamata had said at Writers' that the incident was a "natok(drama)", the comment made even before the police started the probe. The chief minister had prejudged the Park Street rape too, saying it was "concocted" to "malign" her government. Referring to the Katwa incident, Mamata had said: "Medical evidence does not prove rape. She has said her husband is a CPM supporter…. Harmad-der diye natok shajachhe jatey Banglar naam kharap hochhe (they are staging an act with the help ofharmads, which is giving Bengal a bad name)." The woman's husband, it was later found out, had died 11 years ago. The woman today said she was relieved after the arrests. "The chief minister's insensitive remarks hurt me. I knew that the truth would come out one day," she said at her home in Ketugram. On February 29, the woman had said she felt "insecure and scared" because of the chief minister's remarks. "I am now uncertain whether Trinamul will help me. I am also not sure if the police will investigate the case properly," she had said. She had sought Katwa Congress MLA Rabindranath Chatterjee's help. "After I was raped, a gang member had threatened to kill my daughter if I took the train again.... Now, the police may not pursue the case anymore and the criminals could target me again," the woman had said. An officer said the accused were arrested following the interrogation of three youths held for robbing passengers on the train from which the woman was abducted. The CPM seized the opportunity to attack the chief minister. "It has been proved that she was totally wrong," said Achintya Mullick, a CPM district secretariat member. | 
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