From Durgapur to RG Kar: Are West Bengal’s campuses safe for female students? CM’s ‘stay indoors’ stance underlines policy failure
West Bengal has long projected itself as one of India’s safest regions for women. Kolkata, often described as a city of intellect and culture, routinely ranks high in safety perception surveys. According to the 2023 NCRB report, Kolkata has been ranked as the safest Indian city for the fourth consecutive year, recording the lowest number of cognisable offences per lakh population. Ironically, the survey also shows a decline in crimes against women. Yet, behind this reassuring record lies a growing crisis. Female students across the state are feeling increasingly unsafe, unheard, and unprotected.The brutal gang rape of a young medical student from Odisha in Durgapur this October has ripped apart the illusion of student safety in West Bengal. The 23-year-old, studying at a private medical college, was abducted and assaulted when she stepped out for dinner near her hostel. Her ordeal echoes the tragic R.G. Kar Medical College case in 2024, where a young doctor was raped and murdered inside her hostel, exposing persistent gaps in campus security and institutional accountability. The details are horrific, but what has shaken many more is what followed: The state’s political leadership and institutions responding with tone-deaf remarks, shifting blame, and reinforcing the culture of fear that women have been trying to escape.
Mamata Banerjee ’s shocking comments
In the days after the assault, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made a statement that left the nation stunned. PTI reports that while expressing shock, CM Banerjee advised female boarders, especially those from outside the state, to “stay indoors, follow hostel rules, and avoid venturing out late at night.”“They have the right to go wherever they want,” Banerjee said, “but the police have limitations and cannot monitor everyone.”The remark, widely condemned by women’s rights groups and student unions, reflects a mindset that has haunted India’s gender discourse for decades. The belief that women’s safety depends on their compliance, not on society’s accountability, continues to shape policy and public opinion. The suggestion that protection lies in restriction is not just outdated; it is dangerous. It sends a chilling message: If women step outside, they invite risk, and if they are assaulted, they share the blame.
Echoes of the R.G. Kar Medical College case
This is not the first time West Bengal’s student community has been shattered by such violence. In August 2024, a young doctor was raped and murdered inside her hostel at R.G. Kar Medical College in Kolkata, one of the state’s top government institutions. That case, too, exposed gaping holes in campus security and a slow, often indifferent administrative response.Protests erupted across Kolkata then, with junior doctors demanding justice and safety reforms. Yet more than a year later, little seems to have changed. The same vulnerabilities remain: Unmonitored hostel premises, poor CCTV coverage, delayed police response, and a tendency to silence victims instead of supporting them.The Durgapur case now reads like a grim repetition of the same script: another young woman violated, another family shattered, and another cycle of outrage followed by defensiveness from those in power.
The myth of Kolkata’s safety narrative
For years, Kolkata has stood apart from cities like Delhi or Mumbai in public discourse on women’s safety. Reports often highlight lower rates of sexual violence per capita, and state leaders routinely cite these statistics as proof of progress. As already mentioned, according to the NCRB’s 2023 compendium, Kolkata once again tops the “safest city” table by overall crime rate, logging 83.9 cognisable offences per lakh people—the lowest among the 19 metros with populations above 20 lakh. On crimes against women, the city reported 1,746 cases in 2023 (down from 1,890 in 2022 and 1,783 in 2021), translating to 25.7 cases per lakh women—the third-lowest rate nationally after Chennai (17.3) and Coimbatore (22.7) (NCRB 2023). But numbers can hide more than they reveal.In many institutions, harassment and abuse go underreported because victims fear retaliation or social stigma. Hostel wardens discourage “negative publicity.” Police often nudge families to settle quietly. The Durgapur survivor’s father’s anxiety is emblematic of a larger truth: Many parents no longer trust the system to protect their daughters.Student unions across the state, including those at Jadavpur University and Presidency University, say that the narrative of safety has become a “statistical comfort blanket” used to project normalcy while systemic failures fester.
When leadership turns inward, women pay the price
Chief Minister Banerjee’s comment is not an isolated misstep; it reflects a broader pattern of victim-blaming rhetoric that appears whenever women are attacked. The instinct to lecture women rather than reform systems is a political reflex seen across party lines, but in West Bengal, it stings sharper because the state has prided itself on progressive politics and gender equality.By telling women to stay home, leaders shift the narrative from state accountability to personal behavior. It is a subtle but powerful form of control. It teaches young women to shrink their worlds, to doubt their right to public space, and to internalize blame.The fallout is not abstract. Across Durgapur, Asansol, and even Kolkata’s medical colleges, female students are now restricting movement, cancelling evening study sessions, and avoiding night shifts in hospitals. These are real sacrifices for real fear.
An institutional collapse in slow motion
Every layer of the system seems to have failed female students: Administrations that ignore complaints, police who react late, and leaders who rationalize danger instead of eliminating it.Security measures that should be standard—24-hour patrolling near women’s hostels, verified staff and guards, emergency helplines that actually respond—remain inconsistent or poorly enforced. Meanwhile, universities and hospitals that should be sanctuaries of learning have become places where women measure freedom against risk.Experts say the state’s lack of gender-sensitivity training within the police and education system worsens the problem. Even after landmark reforms following the Nirbhaya case, the translation of policy into local enforcement remains painfully thin.
Female students paying the price
Female students are paying the cost of fear. In hostels and campuses across West Bengal, they whisper warnings to each other. What roads to avoid, which cabs not to take, how early to return. For every woman who gathers the courage to file a complaint, dozens stay silent, fearing the first question they’ll face will not be what happened but why were you out so late.The Durgapur survivor’s ordeal has reignited a quiet panic among young women who once believed Kolkata and its university towns were safe spaces for study and independence. That belief is now fractured. For many students, the fear is no longer just of assault. It is of being dismissed, doubted, or blamed by those who should be protecting them.
Freedom is not a privilege
Real safety cannot be achieved by restricting freedom. It comes from environments where women can live, study, and work without the constant calculation of risk. Female students in West Bengal deserve more than condolences and curfews. They deserve action.That means stronger campus vigilance, transparent accountability from police, proper grievance redressal cells, and a zero-tolerance approach to institutional negligence. It means leaders who affirm freedom, not fear.Because the question is no longer whether West Bengal is safe for women. The question is whether it even wants to be.
