BHUBANESWAR: As national BJP leaders joined the chorus demanding ouster of Minister of State for Home Dibya Shankar Mishra, BJP Mahila Morcha hit the streets on Saturday and engaged in a scuffle with Commissionerate police on their way to Naveen Nivas.
Women leaders and activists of the saffron party led by State BJP Mahila Morcha president Smruti Patnaik took out a massive rally from party headquarters to Naveen Nivas demanding the resignation of the Minister and CBI probe into the murder of Kalahandi school teacher Mamita Meher.
A scuffle ensued between the protesters and the police near Sishu Bhawan Square when the BJP activists on a symbolic funeral procession tried to break the police barricade. “Several of our activists have sustained injuries due to police excesses and the critically injured persons are undergoing treatment in different hospitals of the city,” claimed the Morcha president.
Police took many of them into preventive custody and released them later. On the other hand, president of national BJP Mahila Morcha Vanathi Srinivasan has urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for immediate dismissal of Mishra from his Council of Ministers. “While condemning this heinous crime against women perpetrated by the Sunshine English Medium School’s owner, identified by the Odisha Police as Gobinda Sahu, the BJP Mahila Morcha demands that Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik uphold the dignity of office of the Home Minister and immediately sack Mishra without any delay,” said a press statement issued by Srinivasan in New Delhi.
Since the victim’s family has raised serious charges against the Minister and his alleged involvement in the sex racket run from the school premises by Sahu, Srinivasan said, the Chief Minister has no option left but to sack Mishra for his acts of commission and omission in this case. “The sacking of the Home Minister is required to deliver justice to the woman, who has been murdered and to all other women who have suffered sexual exploitation,” she said.
In a tweet, national BJYM president Tejasvi Surya alleged that the BJD has been silencing BJYM-Odisha workers with violence but the fight for justice for the Kalahandi lady teacher will continue. Similarly, in-charge of BJP National Information and Technology department, Amit Malviya said that Mamita was killed because she blew the lid off a sex scandal which saw girl students being exploited by the owner, believed to be close to Minister Dibya Shankar Mishra.