Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
It is a shame that newspapers of Orissa could not stand with the gang-rape victim of Kunduli, who, oppressed by the State, committed suicide on Monday, as they allowed their palms to be greased with high-priced multicolored full page self=propaganda ads of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, which mocked at the grief of the people and overshadowed the sad news.
The minor girl, a student of class IX, while returning from school, was gang-raped by four uniformed armed personnels on October 10, 2017.
The State under Naveen Patnaik’s constant misrule used various tricks to hush up the offense, as armed uniformed men need be kept aboveboard. On the bed, where she was struggling to survive, she had told the Press how a senior Police Officer had even offered her bribe to withdraw her allegation.
After the gang-rape, brutally injured, she was brought to a hospital, her painful cries piercing into the hearts of the television viewers.
The doctor who had attended her had told on camera that she was brutally raped.
He had advised for her immediate admission to any higher level hospital, where her suspected inner injuries needed specialist intervention.
With Police reaching the primary hospital, Tv channels surprisingly blacked him out and since then his first impression has never figured either in any discussion on the channels or newspapers.
Instead of finding out the culprits, Police labored hard to make innuendoes audible that wanted people to take her as a psychopath.
Public resentment mounting, usual hoodwinking tools like crime branch investigation, judicial inquiry were used by the State. But the lackadaisical treatment under intimidating Police eyes, had driven the child from bad to worse.
When newspaper banners and TV telecasts made every individual have it that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, under whose misrule the helpless victim of gang-rape perpetrated by armed Jawans was so ignominiously suffering, was going to be declared the “Ideal Chief Minister” of India by a remote-controlled body styled MITWP Univ of Pune, she decided to end her life, sure of no justice ever to come under the regime.
As if nothing happened, sycophants from all over the State were drawn to Bhubaneswar to celebrate the so-called ideal brand bagged by Naveen and full-page multicolored ads with the State symbol were issued to every newspaper that mattered.
Had Naveen Patnaik an iota of concern for the victim, he could have shunned the celebrations. And, had the avaricious newspapers of Orissa had any commitment to the readers, they should have refused to publish the ad.
In this ad, Naveen Patnaik with a a remorseless face, mocking at the sorrow of the people, has been planted over the world famous Wheel of Konark.
Konark carries a celebrated saga of how a father (Bishu Maharana) had preferred his clan to his son (Dharmapad), the boy that had succeeded in erecting the top of the temple and had finally settled its center.
Against this saga of sacrifice by a father of his beloved son for the society, projection of Naveen Patnaik, who prefers nothing but self to the nation of Oriyas, as witnessed in Bhasha Andolan running its Black Flag campaign for last 650 days for management of affairs of the people in their mother tongue, has given history to note how media in Orissa has fallen in hands of fellows that can surpass any prostitute in entertaining anybody for money.
We deem it proper to ask the Chief Minister to immediately take to state possession of every television record since October 10, 2017 till date so that living history of this most menacing misconduct of armed personnel cannot be extinguished and tampered with. These records are essential to determine the crime.
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