Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The very meager response to Mohanty Commission’s call for information through affidavit in Pipili case makes one suspect that it is almost boycotted by the public.
The people of Orissa, except the workers of BJD, aggrieved over police mischief in the matter of Pipili felony, have been demanding CBI probe into the rape-cum-attempt to murder angle with Orissa Gana Samaj representing their voice transcending party flags.
Though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has appointed Justice P.K.Mohanty to investigate into the matter, people do not take the Commission to be of any relevant use except being a factor to fizzle out the tremendous agitation against the suspected criminals, like what has happened through so many commissions in his regime.
The OGS, therefore, had requested Justice Mohanty to refuse the appointment. But, the request was not heeded to.
Justice Mohanty had invited affidavits from whosoever has any information to share with the Commission in the matter of the crime to facilitate the inquiry, fixing March 3 as the last date for submission thereof. But only 7 persons have submitted their affidavits: six from the village of the victim of the crime who is perishing under coma in S.C.B.Medical College Hospital, Cuttack and one from a lawyer from Pipili, though thousands and thousands of people of Orissa are aware of different aspects of the inhuman offense the poor girl as been subjected to.
In no Judicial Commission of Inquiry heretofore the Commission’s invitation for information through affidavits had received such poor response. It indicates to only one phenomenon: people have no faith in the Commission of Inquiry as a medium of justice. And hence, they have almost boycotted it by staying away from submitting informations called for.