From pillar to post for justice

sagar
post news network

Bhubaneswar, Jan 14: Son of former Deogarh MLA Subash Chandra Panigrahi is at large for two months. He is accused of cheating a nursing student on pretext of marriage, causing her miscarriage and threatening with dire consequences.
Victim Nirmala (name changed), meanwhile, has received a death threat January 9, from unknown motorcyclists while she was on her way home from police station. Nirmala said investigation officer Gayatri Mohapatra is going slow in the case deliberately, which would give leverage to the accused in securing an anticipatory bail from the High Court.
Neither has she received police protection nor the accused arrested in two months. According to the police, Alok Panigrahi, an engineering graduate from ITER College and resident of Shailasri Bihar at Chandrasekharpur, had been in a relationship with the victim and maintained physical relationship for two years on pretext of marriage. He also gave medicine to the victim when she was pregnant, which caused miscarriage, without her knowledge.
“He kept me locked throughout my pregnancy period at a hostel in Nayapalli (Plot No.357) near ID Market. Later, when I insisted on marriage, he abandoned me,” Nirmala said. Her medical report came out Wednesday, after pursuing it doggedly with the police, but she was not shown the result. “There is no provision to show it to the victim, we will produce it in court,” the investigating officer said.
The test, itself, was done after one and a half months of filing the FIR, November 11. According to law, medical test of a victim harassed sexually must be conducted within 24 hours of lodging the case. Incidentally, the police station has not produced the case diary yet before the court. “The corrupt officials are dilly-dallying the arrest which is helping the accused to secure anticipatory bail,” said Babita Kar, a lawyer at sessions court here.
When Orissa Post asked police officer Gayatri as to why they could not trace the accused, she said, “The accused’s phone is showing switched off. We found IMEI number but have not been able to find his whereabouts.” On charges of nexus with the accused, she got infuriated and said, “I don’t know anything.”
In December, Nirmala moved the Orissa State Commission for Women (OSCW) which has set a hearing date three months later. On the day she went to file her appeal, one of the counsellors, Bijaya Barwa, hurled abuses at her on coming to know that she had shared her agony with Orissa Post.
Meanwhile, Nirmala has been visiting the Mahila police station everyday and returning home in the evening after waiting for hours, in vain. When she had approached a High Court lawyer earlier, he took `5000 from her as fee but never responded to her calls later.
Nowadays, she wears a ‘naqaab’ (veil) while walking out in fear that somebody is shadowing her life.