Asish Mehta
Post NewsNetwork
Bhubaneswar, April 30: The daughter of a person accused of rape is suffering sexual assault, harassment and ostracism at the hands of fellow villagers.
Madhusmita (name changed), from Haripur in Khurda district, lodged a complaint with the Orissa Human Rights Commission (OHRC) that the Haripur sarpanch and police officials, including the Khurda SP, are hand-in-glove with those harassing her family.
While Madhusmita’s parents are languishing in Jharpada jail, her siblings — four brothers and three sisters — are struggling to live on their own in a rented house in Nirakarpur.
Some villagers had implicated her parents in the rape of a 13-year-old girl to get rid of the family and seize the land on which their house was built, she alleged. Her father, who has been accused of the rape, is in police custody, while her mother has been arrested for assisting him in the crime, she said.
Madhusmita said their house has been ransacked by villagers after her father was accused of the rape.
“Kailash Jena, his brother Jayant and father Gaurav, all influential people, wanted to seize the land on which our house was built. So they implicated my parents in the rape case,” said Madhusmita.
The harassment by villagers forced the children to leave home and take shelter in neighbouring Nirakarpur village. Their home was later razed by villagers, Madhusmita said.
The complainant said she was also sexually harassed by Kailash who threatened her with dire consequences if they tried to rebuild their house in Haripur.
“We were harassed by members of the Jena family in public, but residents of the area turned a blind eye. People think my father raped a girl and their attitude towards us is unbearable. Two of my brothers could not take their board exams this year and my younger sister also failed to appear for her Plus II exams because of the ongoing controversy,” Madhusmita stressed.
Braja Mohanty, a native of Haripur, said it was unfair for villagers to target the children for a crime that their parents are accused of.
Haripur sarpanch Girish Moharana rebutted Madhusmita’s allegations and said their house was built illegally on government land. “As their parents are allegedly involved in a rape case, the villagers are not allowing the children to return to Haripur,” Moharana said.
Haripur villagers said most of their houses were built on government land. When asked why Madhusmita’s family was being singled out, Khurda SP Dilip Das said that was not the issue. The family of the minor girl who was raped was not letting Madhusmita’s family return to the village, he clarified.
OHRC has assured that it will look into the case and take action.