Scores of BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) women wing activists staged a sit-in at Gandhi Park on Monday, demanding immediate arrest of the accused of the Nari Niketan case of alleged rape of a mentally retarded inmate. State BJP president Tirath Singh Rawat was present during the stir. The members shouted slogans against the State Government, slamming the latter for seeking to hush the matter up.
The BJP women affiliate activists said that the incident was a disturbing instance of the law and order crumbling down. They said that the alleged rape of a mentally challenged inmate who was forced to undergo abortion by unidentified persons at a highly protected shelter home for the distressed women revealed the nadir the State has touched on the law and order front. Stating that the incident had exacerbated the insecurity among the women, another agitator said that the State Women Commission had been conspicuous by its absence. “Things warrant that they should be in the forefront to champion the cause of the wronged women. But they have gone into hiding, triggering questions behind their invisibility,” she said.
Sushila Baluni, the former chairperson of the State Women Commission and a senior State BJP leader, echoed the same, saying that the women are feeling insecure across the State with the State government having abdicated its authority. “Cases of crimes against women are spiraling with the Nari Niketan case turning the glaring instance,” she said, affirming that the guilty must be brought to book and meted out exemplary, deterrent punishment.
Taking potshots at the State government over the latter’s alleged apathy to unveil the crime, Tirath Singh Rawat said police arresting none of the accused are all out to hush the case. “Probe is being deliberately delayed and the accused are being kept off the hook with a sinister design,” he said, adding that his party would intensify its agitation across the State unless police arrest the accused promptly.