Kolkata: Police arrested three people in connection with the alleged gang rape and murder of a 32-year-old Communit party leader’s wife in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district.

The victim’s family has alleged that the woman was gang-raped and hanged to death. However, a postmortem report has said it was a case of suicide and the woman was not sexually assaulted.

According to the report, there were no signs of external injuries or sexual assault on her body and the cause of death was due to hanging and a case of suicide has been suspected.

But Communist Party-Marxist (CPM) officials claimed the woman had been a victim of threats and attempts to extort money out of her, due to her husband’s political activities.

“Trinamool Congress [TMC] workers had demanded Rs1.2 million [Dh72,567] from the victim’s family. When she refused [to pay up], she was paraded naked, raped and murdered and then assaulted near the village centre. We complained to the police to protect her but police did not take any action. They [TMC people] again returned and raped her. She was hanged to make it appear as suicide. Now, TMC has forced the doctors to produce a fabricated report to protect their goons,” claimed Tapas Sinha, a member of the CPM’s district committee.

He also alleged that TMC lawmaker Tapas Paul’s “rape and kill” remarks were the catalyst behind the incident.

“This is a result of Paul’s call for the raping and killing of our party workers. While the police took no action against Paul, they are now trying all means to convert this rape and murder into a suicide,” said Sinha.

The victim’s family has named 12 people in the First Information Report (FIR) with all of them owing allegiance to the state’s ruling party.

“We have arrested three people and booked them on charges of abetment to suicide. The postmortem report has clarified that it was not a case of rape and murder, but death due to hanging. We will abide by that,” said Sukesh Jain, Superintendent of Police, East Midnapore.

However, police sources told Gulf News, that there was immense pressure from the ruling party to ensure that the incident does not get out of control.

“Everyone has used the police department for political gains. This is nothing new,” lamented a senior police official, unwilling to be named.