Orissa chief minister J.B. Patnaik is no stranger to allegations of sexual misconductbut the charges have never stuck. The latest, the alleged gang-rape of Anjana Mishra, a 29-year-old housewife, by Patnaik's men on January 9, is threatening his survival, with even his party rivals joining hands with the Opposition to demand his ouster. That Congress president Sonia Gandhi is taking the charges seriously is evident from the fact that she summoned him to Delhi for an explanation.
Fact is, the law and order situation in Orissa has taken a turn for the worse. On that same Saturday, four other cases of rape were reported. But while the Patnaik government has come out in poor light, the discrepancies in Anjana's own account have cast doubts on her credibility and strengthened the belief that her charges may be politically motivated.
Anjana had earlier rocked the administration when she accused former advocate-general Indrajeet Ray of attempting to rape hershe had implicated Patnaik and is still fighting a legal battle against Ray.
The police are tight-lipped about this case; the Opposition and Patnaik rivals are trying to politicise it to their advantage; the witnesses are giving divergent accounts. So, what happened on the night of January 9? Anjana says she was raped by three men, claiming to be Ray's supporters, at Barang near Cuttack. Accompanied by close friend Shutanu Guru, news editor of Orissa TV, a local cable television channel, she was driving to Cuttack to discuss her case with her lawyer in a hired taxi.
In her nine-page fir, Anjana alleged that the vehicle was intercepted by armed miscreants near a dhaba on the Barang-Cuttack road. One of them got into the back seat and held her while another accused, called 'Sahu', took over the wheel. The third drove a scooter, and forced the taxi driver to ride pillion.
Anjana says she was then taken to a deserted spot, stripped, dragged for some distance and raped repeatedly. One of the rapists then left on the scooter, while two others got into the vehicle with herand the witnesses, Guru and driver Rout. In the back seat, Anjana was allegedly raped again by Sahu. At 7.30 am on Sunday, Anjana lodged her complaint with the mahila police station at Baxi Bazaar, Cuttack.
She alleges that the accused were referring to her by her nickname (Rolly) and repeatedly shouted they were Ray's men. "Rolly, why don't you become J.B. Patnaik's queen?" was one of the taunts allegedly thrown at her. While Anjana's account is harrowing, sceptics say there are several gaps in her story.
She claims that she left her house at 8 pm after security was denied to her. However, the entry in the log book of the security camp outside her Nayapalli house puts the time of her departure for Cuttack at 10.05 pm. Her personal security officer (pso) Itishree Das, who has since been suspended, claims that she asked madam whether she wanted to go anywhere at 8 pm and left only when she was told that Anjana was going to be at home. But Anjana maintains that she had been asking for an escort since 4 pm and finally left at 8 when the police did not bother to comply. By her account, she then asked Guru to accompany her as she wished to discuss her case with her lawyer, Debashis Panda.
When the taxi driver, Nilakantha Rout, and the owner of the dhaba near which the incident occurred, were questioned, they did not corroborate Anjana's story beyond the fact that she had been waylaid by some hooligans. Both claim that the car stopped at the dhaba at 10.30 pm. Anjana and Guru had tea and snacks and left at around 11. 30 pm. The three miscreants, who frequent the dhaba, had their dinner and left at 11.15 pm. Rout says he was forced off the car and can't say what transpired. Guru, of course, is sticking by Anjana's story but stayed off-limits to the media.
The Barang road is an unsafe route, generally avoided at night. In view of the absence of security, the police are baffled why Anjana chose to take the road at all, that too at night. What's even more intriguing is the fact that Anjana's lawyer was at Bhubaneswar, not Cuttack. So why was she on her way to meet him in the first place? Her explanation is that she intended to catch him off-guard as he had been eluding her.
Last Tuesday, one of the three assailants, Padia Sahu, was arrested from Godi Sahi near Barang but the other two are still to be traced. They have been identified as Tuna Mohanty and Bipin Biswal. Sahu was identified by the driver and dhabaand late Friday by Anjana herself. A medical examination of the victim was carried out by a 10-member team of doctors who didn't rule out intercourse but pointed out that she had no injury marks. Anjana dismisses the report as concocted'' and claims that only one doctor examined her. The investigation, meanwhile, has been handed over to the crime branch headed by IG, crime, Indrajeet Yachuk.
The police have announced a reward of Rs 25,000 to anyone who discloses information leading to the arrest of the guilty. A judicial probe has been ordered. But Patnaik has refused to step down or own moral responsibility for the attack, though he admitted it was a security lapse. And swiftly removed the inspector of Nayapalli police station, Premanjan Parida. Asked at a press conference whether he would step down, Patnaik countered, Should I resign every time a woman is gang-raped?
In Delhi late Friday, he reiterated that there was no question of him quitting: Why should I? What is the reason? In fact, he said he was so incensed at the dissident activity that he warned the rebels of disciplinary action. He said the Congress dissidents' behaviour was worse than the Opposition; and that their indiscipline would be conveyed to the high command. And while he admitted that personally he wasn't against a cbi probe, he told the media that a judiciary probe would be more transparent and impartial. Asked to comment on the Opposition demand for a cbi inquiry, he quipped: They will demand a judicial probe if I order a cbi inquiry and vice-versa.
Anjana's latest salvo had given Patnaik's rivals in his own Cabinet an excuse to gun for him. Soon after Saturday's incident, deputy chief minister and aspirant for the chief minister's post Basant Biswal rushed to Delhi to demand Patnaik's ouster. He was accompanied by six other dissident ministers. Another batch of dissident Congress leaders also proceeded to Delhi separately. In the second batch was pcc president Hemananda Biswal, who told Sonia that the incident was likely to tarnish the Congress government's image in the state.
The conflicting reactions from party leaders, Sonia apart, have only added insult to the injury. Madhavrao Scindia, who is in charge of Orissa, was on a visit to Patna when the oust-Patnaik campaign gained momentum. He first dismissed the charges against Patnaik as ridiculous; but then later admitted that Patnaik's fate would depend on the outcome of his interview with Sonia Gandhi and the decision taken at the cwc. But party spokesperson Girija Vyas ruled out a change of leadership in Orissa before the report of the judicial inquiry is submitted, giving the much beleaguered chief minister a much-needed respite.
While Anjana claims that the rape is the latest in a series of moves to intimidate her, Patnaik dismisses the charge as nonsense. With charges and counter-charges on both sides, the case has catapulted the sleepy state to the limelight for all the wrong reasons. The Opposition, quick to cash in on the situation, called a bandh, which was quite a success. cpi(m) politburo member Sitaram Yechuri visited Anjana on Friday and said the chief minister had no moral right to remain in office. The National Commission for Women blamed the administrative machinery for its lax, insensitive handling of the case. A three member team, which toured Orissa for three days, took umbrage at Anjana being examined by male doctors, instead of female gynaecologists.
Whatever the facts of the case, the Anjana story is by any reckoning a messy one. From the day she was rescued from the Psychiatry Institute at Kanke, Anjana has charted a bizarre course. In a petition filed before the high court, the victim has said that nothing less than a cbi probe would satisfy her. The case has already been politicised to the hilt and there is every indication that the outcome of the investigation could well decide the fate of the J.B. Patnaik government.
