PURI: As Odisha climbs up the ignominious ladder of crime against women, yet another case of rape took place in Puri on Monday in the midst of the ongoing holy Rath Yatra festival.
A minor tribal girl was raped by a bus helper in the vehicle parked at the city bus stand on Monday night.
According to the complaint filed by the girl at Kumbharapada police station, she was associated with an NGO in Puri district and had been living in the city since a month.
While she was going to her village in Keonjhar district in the bus on June 29, its helper Narayan Mullick engaged her in friendly talk and took her mobile number.
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On July 8, Narayan called her and after learning that she was in Bhubaneswar, he asked her to travel in his bus to Puri. She boarded the bus at Rasulgarh at 5 pm.
Though she wanted to get down at Malatipatapur bus stand, the helper persuaded her to accompany him to Puri to witness Rath Yatra. After the bus was parked in Puri, he gave her dinner and asked her to sleep in the bus.
At about 11 pm, the girl woke up feeling pain in her private parts and found the helper forcing himself on her. She protested and escaped. She went to Kumbharapada police station and lodged the complaint.
Police registered a case of rape and arrested Narayan. After medical examination of both the girl and the helper, police produced Narayan in the court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate who remanded him in jail custody on Tuesday.
Judicial probe demanded
Congress party has demanded a judicial probe into the alleged rape of minor tribal girl inside a bus in Puri.
Describing the incident as shameful, senior Congress leader Suresh Kumar Routray said only a judicial probe will bring out the truth.
The incident happened when more than 10,000 police personnel were deployed at Puri for Rath Yatra.
Alleging that the incident has exposed the State Government’s failure to ensure the security of women, BJP’s state general secretary Lekhashree Samantsinghar said the incident has proved that the law and order situation has completely deteriorated in the State.
However, Minister for Commerce and Transport Padmanabha Behera said the state government has ordered a probe into the incident. “I came to know about the incident from media reports.
A probe has already been started into the matter and the Transport department will provide all help to the police,” he said.