BHUBANESWAR: Describing the State Commission for Women’s report on the alleged rape and attempt to murder of a Dalit girl at Pipili as “distorted”, Opposition political parties on Monday upped the ante by demanding sacking of Jyoti Panigrahi.
“We will submit a memorandum to the Governor on Tuesday seeking her removal,” said State Mahila Congress president Bijaylaxmi Sahoo.
Rejecting to the Opposition demand, Panigrahi said, “It is wrong to describe the girl in a coma as a victim of rape sans any credible evidence. People who are demanding my resignation should understand how the girl would feel after her recovery when she gets to know that she has been described as a rape victim.”
Panigrahi in her report submitted to the State Government last week had mentioned that from the photocopy of the FIR she found there was no credible evidence of rape of the girl, struggling for survival at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
“I perused the photocopy of the FIR and found no allegation of sexual assault of the victim nor name of any accused was mentioned,” Panigrahi had stated in the report. As per the FIR, victim’s relatives found her half naked and in an unconscious state in a paddy field, she said adding a mark of injury on the neck was mentioned in FIR.
Opposition parties, however, burnt copies of the SCW report and alleged that Panigrahi prepared it keeping an eye on the ensuing panchayat polls. “It is unfortunate that the SCW chairperson says the girl is not raped while victim’s mother claims her daughter was gangraped,” CPI State secretary Dibakar Nayak told a rally.
Panigrahi has lost moral right to continue in her post, Nayak said while Samajwadi Party State president Rabi Behera sought Governor M C Bhandare’s intervention. “We have urged the Governor to advice her to resign or sack her from the high office,” SP State unit said in a memorandum. Leaders of CPM and Forward Bloc also deplored the SCW report.