Bhubaneswar, Sept. 22: The BJD has decided to send a delegation to Delhi to express solidarity with a 29-year-old techie from the state who was attacked for protesting against the marriage of a minor girl.
This is the latest in the string of incidents in which the party makes the right noises and politically correct moves such as sending party delegations to meet the Odia victims of unfortunate incidents in the national capital.
Software engineer Linkan Subuddhi, who also works with an NGO in Noida, is critical and undergoing treatment at a hospital in Delhi.
A team comprising State Women’s Commission chairperson Lopamudra Bauxipatra and Rajya Sabha member Renubala Pradhan will leave for Delhi tomorrow to meet Subuddhi, who was stabbed on Thursday when she protested against a family’s attempt to get their minor daughter married.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik expressed concern over the attack and has directed Odisha’s resident commissioner in Delhi to get in touch with the Delhi government and urge them to arrest the culprit.
However, if past experience is any indication, there is hardly any follow-up in such cases, either by the BJD or the state government, though both claim to be championing the cause of the Odias.
The ruling party, for instance, seems to have forgotten the 39-year-old woman from Odisha who was raped in Delhi in March. No one in the party has any idea how the victim is doing now.
When the incident occurred on March 30, Naveen had sent two of his ministers — Sarojini Hembram and Usha Devi — to Delhi to meet the victim as a gesture of solidarity. The state government had also contacted the Delhi police commissioner urging him to nab the accused at the earliest.
However, no one kept track of how things transpired since then.
Manasi Pradhan, a member of the National Commission for Women, said: “The victim is the only earning member of her family. After our inquiry, we had recommended to the state government to take steps for her rehabilitation but nothing has been done so far.”
Hembram, the minister for textile and handloom, said she had no idea of what the woman she had met in Delhi at the instance of the chief minister was doing now.
“The case does not come under my department. Since it comes under the purview of the women and child welfare department, they may have some idea,” she said.
Women and child welfare department minister Usha Devi could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.