Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: Her battle for justice was a protracted one, 22 years to be exact. A battle that was marked by dying, rape threats, an alleged political conspiracy, and a judgemental society that denied any assist or sympathy to her. But the lady — who was sexually assaulted by three individuals on the evening of January 9, 1999, at Barang – refused to be pinned down or quit.
Today, twenty years later, the arrest of prime accused Bibekananda Biswal within the sensational case that noticed the ouster of the then Chief Minister JB Patnaik, has introduced her much-needed closure. “At last the law has caught up with him but he should have been arrested while the former Chief Minister JB Patnaik wasalive and the conspiracy angle should have been exposed”, mentioned the survivor who calls for that the prime accused be hanged to dying.
Thanking Commissioner of Police (CP) Sudhansu Sarangi and his complete workforce which arrested the prime accused from Pune, she mentioned she had not misplaced hope even after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) did not deliver the perpetrator to justice. “It is really great of the CP to have done what he did”, she mentioned.
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Recalling her ordeal in getting justice, the survivor mentioned she was alone in her trauma and battle. “It was very painful. Every day of my life was a constant struggle. Back then my apartment was stoned by Congress workers, they attacked and tried killing me on multiple occasions, gave me rape threats. I wentthrough a very rough time with the police taking no action then”, she mentioned.
She mentioned that so long as the media was writing in regards to the case, the police took sturdy motion. “The moment the media forgot about the case, the investigators stopped taking the case seriously. The fight got tougher then”, the sufferer mentioned, including that the social gathering staff would throw stones at her residence daily.“I was forced to vacate my own house because the political goons would not let me stay. I decided to shift to my mother’s place”, she recalled.
“Amidst all the pain and struggle, I had promised myself that I will never give up my fight for justice or put up with the injustice. No one should. We have to fight our own battles”, she mentioned.