Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan castigates BJD govt in Odisha, says no one safe in state

By Sukanta Kumar Mohanty

Bhubaneswar, April 6: Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday, March 30, launched a no-holds-barred attack on the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha and alleged that the state had plunged into lawlessness where no one was safe under the present dispensation.

“Neither citizens nor public representatives are safe in Odisha. Gruesome incidents like murders happen on a regular basis. Such incidents have shocked everyone and weakened the trust of people of Odisha,” the minister said.

The minister’s observation came in the backdrop of two back-to-back murder cases in just two months in the industrial town of Jharsuguda in western Odisha. While state health minister Naba Kishore Das was killed by a police officer on January 29, a 14-year-old Class X student was brutally murdered by two miscreants on March 27.

The Crime Branch which is probing into the minister’s murder case still struggles to establish the motive behind the murder of the minister. It has failed to extract any concrete inputs from the accused police officer Gopal Das on why he killed the minister.

The “failure” of the Crime Branch to establish the motive behind the ghastly daylight murder of the minister has found its repercussions on the proceedings of the current Budget Session of the Odisha Legislative Assembly with the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress targeting the Treasury Bench members for failing to protect a minister.

On Wednesday, the Jharsuguda police had recovered the half-charred body of Samarth Agrawal, a Class X student who was abducted for ransom on March 27 afternoon by two miscreants. The boy’s body was found on the bank of a river in Bargarh district, nearly 100 km from Jharsuguda.

Taking to Twitter, Pradhan said, “This is how high-time people in power (the BJD government) recognise the fault-lines in the law and order situation in the state.

Murder of young Samarth exactly within two months of the broad daylight killing of minister Naba Kishore Das exposes the Odisha government’s tall claims on rule of law,” he said.

“No amount of empathy will bring solace to young Samarth’s family. The Odisha government must pull up its socks to ensure rule of law and safety of citizens,” Pradhan added.

Senior BJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra countered Pradhan’s statement saying BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra witnessed more number of murder cases than Odisha in 2021.

Calling Pradhan as Bhai (brother), Patra said, “Don’t insult the peace-loving people of Odisha by branding them as lawless. Don’t insult Odisha for your petty political narrative. It’s surprising to see that despite you having been a Union Minister for so long, you are still unaware about the difference between lawlessness (law and order) and crime.”

Lawlessness is when during a GST raid in Padampur, Odisha, hundreds of Odisha BJP leaders and workers storm in forcibly, snatch the papers seized by the GST raiding party, in a bid to help the businessman who had cheated in paying GST, he said.

When 500 people block National Highway between Sambalpur to Cuttack, delay in completing NH work for many years and when thousands of farmers protest against Central neglect for not lifting surplus paddy are “law and order” issues, Patra said.

Stating that crime is committed by a group or individuals which is investigated and the guilty are brought to justice, the BJD leader said, “Please don’t try to mislead and do politics on sensitive matters of crime.”

As per NCRB Report (2021), BJP-ruled states like UP, MP, Maharashtra, Assam & Haryana have more rape cases than Odisha. Similarly, the BJP-ruled states like UP, MP and Maharashtra have more murder cases than Odisha in 2021, the BJD MP said.