Congress on Wednesday organised a protest rally against growing atrocities on women in the wake of the Gopalpur gang rape case, which has been followed by a similar case in Keonjhar on Wednesday, the home district of chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi.
The party alleged that in Keonjhar, a 17-year-old girl was found hanging after becoming the victim of an alleged sexual assault. While police said the cause of death will only be known after the postmortem, her family alleged that the girl had been raped and then killed. The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) also today met the superintendent of police, Keonjhar, on this issue and submitted a memorandum demanding justice for the girl.
The girl’s body was found hanging from a tree on Tuesday morning in Tentlapashi village in Keonjhar district in northern Odisha. Police have registered a case under Sections 70(2), 103(1) of the BNS and Sections 4(2)/6 of the Pocso Act. “As per the FIR, we have filed a case of gang rape. The investigation is on. We have detained the girl’s boyfriend. On Monday night, the girl’s boyfriend had come to meet her. Later, they had a quarrel and after the boy left the place, the girl committed suicide. It’s a case of rape but not gang rape,” said a senior police officer of Keonjhar. He further said that another boy was also detained in this connection. “We are trying to ascertain the role of the other boy in this connection,” said the officer.
On the Gopalpur gang rape issue, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today tweeted and expressed her anguish. She tweeted: “No words are enough to condemn the barbaric crime committed against a female student in Odisha’s Gopalpur by 10 people. Atrocities against women are on the rise in the state. In a state whose chief minister himself concedes that 44,000 women and children have gone missing in the last five years, not according priority to the safety of women is in itself a crime against them.”
On Tuesday, hundreds of Congress workers tried to barge into the prohibited area close to the chief minister’s house in Bhubaneswar. “When police tried to stop them, tension erupted.” Later, hundreds of Congress workers courted arrest. “Crime against women has gone up in the state. The chief minister remains mum on the issue. While a girl was gang raped on Gopalpur beach, another girl was gang raped and killed in Keonjhar. The Congress will continue to protest till women get justice,” said Congress leader Suresh Routray.
Meanwhile, a crime branch team today reached Gopalpur beach in Ganjam and started an investigation into the gang rape case that took place on Sunday night. Police arrested 10 people, including four juveniles, in this case and forwarded them to the court. Police patrolling parties have been deployed on the beach to avoid such incidents in future.
