Bandh over girl’s suicide affects normal life, Oppn takes to streets
opposition BJP and Congress took to the streets of Odisha on Wednesday as part of their call for a 12-hour statewide bandh, two days after a 14-year-old girl who had accused “four men in uniform” of gangraping her in October last year committed suicide.
Several trains were left stranded at the Bhubaneswar railway station and elsewhere in the state with Congress supporters standing on the tracks protesting the state government's and the police’s apathy in dealing with the girl’s complaint.
BJP workers picketed on the streets of Bhubaneswar. Scores of Congress workers were detained while attempting to gherao DGP RP Sharma’s office in Cuttack. The girl had alleged the DGP was trying to bribe her, a claim the official has denied.
In Puri, BJP workers clashed with the police in Brahmagiri, vandalising the boundary wall of Krushnaprasad police station.
In Konark, thousands of devotees who had come to Chandrabhaga beach to take a holy dip on the occasion of Magha Saptami, a Hindu festival, were left stranded as there were no buses to take the return journey.
The ruling Biju Janata Dal’s own member, Tathagata Satpathy, who is the Lok Sabha MP from Dhenkanal, on Tuesday slammed the police personnel and the doctors investigating the girl’s claims, in a column written for the local newspaper Dharitri.
He accused them of “trying to hide the incident by their silence” and termed January 22 a “Black Day” for Odisha, while writing that “the police and doctors must be celebrating today”.
The Class 9 girl had stood by her accusation that she was gangraped by the four paramilitary jawans on October 10 in Kunduli. Police’s human rights protection cell said the girl was not raped.
The Maoists in Koraput called for a 48-hour shutdown across the state beginning Friday. “We demand Koraput SP, collector and the DIG be immediately transferred. We urge the people to boycott the Republic Day celebrations across the state especially in Koraput district,” Aruna, secretary of the Srikakulam-Koraput division committee of CPI (Maoist) said in an audio tape released Wednesday.
BHUBANESWAR:The