RJD indiscretion eclipses gang-rape of mother and daughter
Till March this year, 289 cases of rape have been registered in the state. Last year, as many as 1,198 rape cases were registered in Bihar, and the number was 1,008 in 2016
No OB vans has been cited. Television channels have by and large ignored the dastardly gang-rape of a middle- aged woman and her daughter after miscreants tied up her husband. Political leaders have barely condemned the ‘Goonda Raj’. The Bihari Modi, as Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi is known as, has not commiserated with the victims and no candle-lit vigil has been reported.
The contrast could not have been more glaring. When a class XII student Aditya Sachdeva was killed in Gaya last year in May, in a case of road rage, the killer was identified as the son of a legislator belonging to the Grand Alliance.
In no time, OB vans of national TV channels swarmed the small town. One of the first visitors to the home of the deceased was BJP leaders Sushil Kumar Modi and Shahnawaz Hussain. The state government sent feelers and conveyed to the family of the deceased that a CBI inquiry could be recommended if the family so wished. Even the national media went to town and exerted sufficient pressure to force the main accused Rocky Yadav to surrender.
A charge sheet was promptly submitted. Speedy trial was done. The trial judge was changed in the middle with no reasons given. Although all the key witnesses including Sachdeva’s four friends who were present at the time of the incident turned hostile, the accused Rocky Yadav was brought to justice and sentenced to life imprisonment.
A year later, even after a week, no NDA leader of any consequence has visited the area or offered any relief to the gang-rape victims. The accused apparently belong to upper castes and are traditional supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the area, complain activists, explaining the lukewarm interest of the government and even the media in the case
The family of three was returning home on a motorcycle in Konch subdivision of Gaya district when they were waylaid. The husband in his fifties was tied to a tree while six of the culprits pounced on the teenaged girl while others settled for the man’s wife.
While 20 of the alleged culprits were detained by the police and three were arrested, more than the crime , the indiscretion of overzealous RJD workers, who produced the teenaged girl before the media, was played up by the media. The police too promptly registered cases against the RJD workers although policemen were equally guilty as they allowed the girl to be taken away by the mob after her medical examination.
The media compounded the offence by carrying pictures of the girl, identifying her along with the RJD workers. No action of course has been taken against the offending media till now.
The RJD workers have been charged with rioting and also for obstructing public servants from discharging their duty, a non-bailable offence.
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