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BJD MLAs staged a walkout of the Odisha Assembly on September 5 alleging increasing incidences of rapes and atrocities of minor children and women in the State.
BJD MLA Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo said, "In the last 45 days since the new government has come in, there an increasing incidence of rape and atrocities of young minor children and women. These heinous crimes have largely gone unaddressed by the government of Odisha. The kind of focus the government should take is just not there for the protection of children. Today in the assembly, the home minister, who is also the chief minister, was not present on his behalf another minister gave a statement saying the action was taken." He further queried that the concrete steps the government would take to ensure that such incidents don't happen in the future post the elections remains an unanswered question. "We walked out in protest against the lack of focus and priority that this government gives to such heinous crimes of rape on women, especially children," Singh said. BJP MP Tankadhar Tripathy countered the allegations and said that in the past police were under pressure to save those accused but under the present regime police had been given complete freedom to take strict action. Tankadhar Tripathy said, "For 24 years, the Biju Janata Dal government was responsible for atrocities against women and those who committed atrocities. The main accused were given protection. The police were under pressure as to how to save the accused. Today, in the BJP government, the police are not under any pressure and they have been given complete freedom to take strict action against whoever is involved." He further said that the crimes that have occurred in the recent past, in that the former CM and opposition leader was giving protection to the accused. "The cases they are talking about in both of them the accused has been held within one hour and six hours and arrangements have been made to give strong punishment to them," the MLA said . Congress MLA C S Raazen Ekka said, "It has not even been 100 days since the BJP government has come to power and rape and murder cases have been rising. Recently there was a rape and murder of a 10-year-old tribal girl in Balasore, then it happened in Sambalpur and Bhubaneswar. Today, we as the opposition questioned the government on the reasons for the rise of these crimes and what steps the government is taking to stop them. What steps the government is taking to give justice to the victims." He said that when the BJP was in opposition they used to give big statements. "If we see incidents in Hatras and Manipur, such incidents are increasing under BJP rule. Chief Minister should interfere and conduct a CBI inquiry, and fast-track these cases and punish the culprits. We brought an adjournment motion demanding answers from the state government about what steps they would take to completely stop such incidents," he added. (ANI)
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