Congress questions ‘silence’ of PM Modi, Amit Shah on crimes against women

Congress questions PM Modi and HM Amit Shah's silence on sexual assault cases in BJP-ruled states, demanding action.

The Congress on Saturday (September 21, 2024) questioned the ‘silence’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the alleged sexual assault on an Army officer’s fiancee in police custody in BJP-ruled Odisha and other such incidents of crime against women in the BJP-ruled States.

Congress leader Ajoy Kumar, addressing a joint press conference along with the chairman of the All India Congress Committee’s (AICC’s) ex-servicemen department, Colonel (Retd) Rohit Chaudhry, referred to the article, Enough is enough, by President Droupadi Murmu on the rape and muder of a young doctor at R.G. Kar Medical college Hospital in Kolkata.

He said, “Sometime ago, President Droupadi Murmu had said ‘enough is enough’ in the wake of the Kolkata incident. Now, we are asking how much is enough? Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur, Indore (referring to incidents of crime here)... we ask Modiji, when will you write an editorial in one of the major national dailies, saying ‘enough is enough’?”

Mr. Kumar, who’s the AICC in-charge for Odisha, said that in Odisha, some men misbehaved with the daughter of an Army brigadier, who is also the fiancee of an Army captain, and when she went to a “model police station” to lodge a complaint, she and her fiance were brutally beaten up.

“Then a fake case is made and the victim and her companion are taken into custody. In this case, an Army officer writes a letter to a high court judge seeking justice. But Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh are silent on this matter,” he said.

In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, two Army officers and their female friends were held hostage and beaten up, and one of the two women was raped, he noted.

Mr. Kumar also referred to the incident in Rajasthan in which an Army jawan was brutally beaten up at a police station and the one in Manipur last year in which the wife of an Army jawan was disrobed.