West Bengal: War of words between Governor & Mamata's Home Department over crime record

The war of words between Bengal's constitutional head and the Government of West Bengal does not seem to end. The latest public spat took on Twitter, with both sides claiming to be factual over the 'crime data' in Bengal for the year 2020.

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar took to Twitter to show his 'concern' over the alleged spike in Bengal's crime rate. He furnished data which cited that as of August 2020, there have been 223 rapes and 639 kidnappings in West Bengal. However, the data published in his tweet did not seem to be from any agency, as no header or name of any registered agency was found in the sheet shared by the Governor on Tuesday.

"Rapes-223 and Kidnappings-639 MamataOfficial in August 2020 as per official reports indicate the worrisome state of crime against women- a cause of concern.  Time to douse fire under feet and put law and order in place WBPolice KolkataPolice before attending flames elsewhere," stated Jagdeep Dhankar.

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Minutes after Governor tweeted that rapes and kidnapping cases were on a rise in Bengal, the Home Department of Bengal Govt issued a statement. The statement termed allegations made by Jagdeep Dhankar to be 'baseless, ill-founded and misguiding'.

The Home Department's official Twitter handle read, "Rajbhavan dissemination of WB "statistics" on rape and kidnapping is not based on any official report, data, or information. Allegations are baseless, ill- founded, and misguiding: totally incongruous with authentic facts and figures."

The Governor retaliated by stating that the data he shared was duly checked and verified, however, he did not mention the source. 

The Governor and the Government have time and again had public spats over multiple issues. However, this time it is over the data of crime against women, where both seem to term themselves factual.

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