Taking a swipe at the State Government over the latter’s alleged attempt to whittle down the Nari Niketan rape and abortion case, the leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Ajay Bhatt said on Wednesday that Special Investigation Team (SIT) which was formed to crack the case is a ruse to shield the big fishes involved in the heinous crime while putting some lower-rung employees of the shelter home on the sacrificial altar.
“We have heard that some inmates of the shelter house are taken out during the night hours evidently to be engaged in flesh trade,” he alleged, an allegation he failed to substantiate by refusing to divulge the source.
The matter of the alleged rape and abortion of a speech and hearing impaired inmate of Nari Niketan by some people has been raging in the State with the ruling Congress facing flak from the principal Opposition party BJP and social activists. BJP leaders had met Uttarakhand Governor KK Paul on Tuesday and submitted a memorandum, demanding judicial inquiry or CBI inquiry into the incident.
“Arrests of contractual employees like Home Guard and Chowkidar are just meant to divert attention from the real criminals. We demand a high-level inquiry into the incident so that all involved in it, irrespective of status, are brought to justice. We are convinced that political pressure is being mounted on SIT, resulting in the probe being crippled from the start,” Bhatt said.
Referring to the sensational Ruby Choudhary case involving the campus of India’s premier academy, lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (lBSNAA), he said the State government is hell-bent on sweeping it under the carpet. “The same is happening in the Nari Niketan case too. But make no mistake. We would not sit idle till the case is solved and the real culprits are tried and punished,” he added.
He asked police to explain why they have not arrested the women who had taken the victim to the hospital to have abortion done on her. “They must explain too why they have kept the doctor who had done the abortion off the hook. We would raise the matter in the Vidhan Sabha when it sits,” he said.
Notably, there are arrangements for around 50 inmates to stay at the shelter home whereas the number of them is presently 130. Out of those staying here, around 100 are either mentally unstable or hearing and speech impaired while the rest are normal. “We wonder why the State Government had not made separate arrangements for the speech and hearing impaired persons. Why have they not installed CCTV cameras there to keep off crimesIJ” the BJP leader asked.
“My party has been saying the same things for years. For we were convinced that the inmates were being exploited. But the Government chose to be deaf,” he said, adding that the issue should not be politicised with the image of the State remaining at stake.