The two-member National Commission for Women (NCW) Inquiry Committee, comprising Manasi Pradhan and Hemlata Kheria, may quiz Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and BJD MP Jayram Pangi in connection with schoolteacher Itishree Pradhan’s murder.
The probe panel would thoroughly examine whether the Chief Minister or the MP had an active role in either commissioning the crime or protecting its perpetrators. The team will also interrogate Rayagada District Magistrate, SP, DSWO, District Inspector of Schools, dismissed School Inspector and Tikiri IIC and other concerned officials in this connection, sources said.
Meanwhile, the team on Tuesday left for Itishree’s village Muninda near Delanga in Puri district. They met the family members of the victim and recorded their statements. On Wednesday, they would visit Rayagada and Tikiri and would likely to talk to the people named in the dying statement of the deceased.
During their eight-day-long visit to the State, the NCW members would probe other cases of violence against women including rape of a minor girl on November 8 at Mohanpur village in Delanga area, gang-rape of a woman by four men last month near Balugaon and other two cases of gang-rape in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. On November 14, the team would discuss with senior State officials and would ask for the action taken report in the case.