Dehradun: Maintaining that the sexual exploitation of a deaf and dumb Nari Niketan inmate has harmed the state's image, BJP on Tuesday demanded a judicial or CBI probe into the case.
A BJP fact finding team submitted its report on the woman's sexual exploitation in a government-run shelter home and demanded that either a Judicial Commission or the CBI should probe the case, while Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Ajay Bhatt said the incident has harmed Uttarakhand's image.
Citing mismanagement at the shelter home and fear among inmates, the team led by BJP MLA Vijaya Barthwal?in its report said that involvement of high profile people in the incident cannot be ruled out.
There are arrangements for only 50 inmates at the shelter home whereas there are 135 inmates staying there out of which 103 are either mentally unstable or with hearing and speech impairment, the team said.
Only 32 persons are normal but are mostly minors who seem too afraid to reveal anything. It seems they have been instructed to keep their mouth shut, the BJP fact finding team said in its report to the Governor.
"As involvement of high profile people cannot be ruled out, an impartial probe into it looks doubtful. Hence it is requested that either a probe by a judicial commission or the CBI is ordered into the case," the party said in a memorandum submitted to the Governor.
Meanwhile Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Ajay Bhatt today said the incident at the city's lone government run shelter home for women in distress has immensely harmed the state's image by exposing its dismal law and order.
The incident shows that the already bad law and order scenario in Uttarakhand has touched a new low," Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Ajay Bhatt said.
Criticising the state government for waking up too late to the seriousness of the situation, he said the BJP had long been saying that women inmates at the shelter home were being physically exploited in various ways but the state government chose to ignore such complaints.
"It is only after sustained pressure built up by the opposition party and the media that the government woke up from its slumber and constituted an SIT to probe the matter and now the reality is before everyone to see," Bhatt said.
The BJP leader, however, said the whole truth is yet to be unravelled in the case as people at whose behest such crimes were being carried out at the shelter home are yet to be exposed.
He also criticised Pradesh Congress Committee president Kishore Upadhyay for recently giving a clean chit to shelter home officials in the case without carrying out a proper investigation.
The care taker of the shelter home and a homeguard deployed there were arrested last night for allegedly sexually exploiting a woman inmate with speech and hearing impaired.
She even got pregnant and was made to undergo an abortion, an official associated with the probe said.
