Odisha: Two teachers rape class 6 girl in school toilet, sent to jail
Nabarangpur/Bhubaneswar, Nov 10: An 11-year-old tribal girl student was raped allegedly by two teachers in a toilet of a state-run school in Odisha's Nabarangpur district, sparking a statewide outcry and opposition parties demanding justice for the victim, police said on Friday.
The headmaster along with another teacher of the government-run residential school allegedly entered the toilet by force and raped the class 6 student when she was inside. The two accused were arrested and subsequently sent to jail after their production in the POCSO court, Nabarangpur, officials said.
"They were produced before special judge Pranati Saha who remanded them to 14-days judicial custody," said public prosecutor Sacchidanand Swain.
Meanwhile, taking a serious note of the issue, the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has sought a report from the Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO), Nabarangpur.
The OHRC has also directed the CDMO-cum-Public Health Officer (PHO) to submit a report within four weeks. The commission has told the CDMO to ensure proper treatment of the girl in the hospital.
The incident which occurred on Tuesday came to light on November 9 when the girl felt pain in the lower abdomen and told her parents what had happened. When she was taken to a hospital, doctors there said she might have been sexually assaulted, police said.
After her parents lodged a complaint at Kundei police station, the headmaster and another teacher of her school were picked up, interrogated and medically examined before being arrested on charge of gang rape, said Nabarangpur SP Rohit Verma.
Police said a case was registered against the teachers under several sections Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The victim was admitted in the district headquarters hospital at Nabarangpur where her treatment is going on, police said.
Meanwhile, opposition BJP and Congress came down heavily on the state's BJD government and blamed it for the rise of crimes against women, particularly minor girls.
"There is no safety of women in the state. If the government does not initiate immediate action in the Nabarangpur school girl gang-rape case, our party will make it an issue and hit the streets," said BJP spokesperson Sonali Sahu at a press conference in Bhubaneswar.
The BJP leader listed a number of ruling party leaders involved in women atrocities cases. Of the 65 MLAs facing different criminal cases, around 42 belonged to the ruling BJD, she pointed out.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Sarat Patnaik also formed a fact-finding team of 10 members headed by Jeypore MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati to make a spot visit and meet the gang-rape survivor and her parents.
District Congress Committee (DCC) president DCC president Monoranjan Tripathy in a press conference at Nabarangpur alleged that the tribal girls were regularly harassed and sexually assaulted in different state-run schools in the district. He announced that the party would launch an agitation seeking justice for the 11-year-old girl student.
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Huge turnout amidst SIR shadow caps ballistic battle for Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal assembly polls ended on Wednesday with what the election watchdog said was the state's highest-ever voter turnout of 92.84 per cent, leading to mouth-watering anticipation ahead of the announcement of results on Monday as both contenders sounded sanguine about their victory prospects.
Wednesday's second phase saw a 92.48 per cent turnout. The concluding phase covering 142 constituencies in south Bengal appears poised to match the first phase's record voter participation of 93.19 per cent by the time final numbers are collated.
The figures put the combined poll percentage over the two-phases at 92.84 per cent. The first phase of polling was held on April 23.
"This is the highest-ever recorded poll participation since Independence in West Bengal," it said.
The capital Kolkata recorded a turnout of 88.59 per cent, with Purba Bardhaman district topping the charts at 93.78 per cent.
The scale of participation sent out an overarching political message — practically every single eligible voter in the state felt personally invested in the electoral process and its outcome. They turned out in numbers large enough to make every narrative contested and every claim of momentum politically loaded. If the first phase tested whether the BJP could retain its north Bengal citadel, the second and final round was always the real battle for the saffron party on whether it could breach the ruling TMC’s southern fortress of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman.
At the centre of the larger political fight stood Bhabanipur, no longer merely a south Kolkata constituency but Banerjee’s political refuge, her emotional home turf and the BJP’s chosen psychological battlefield.
Banerjee, 71, seeking a fourth consecutive term after 15 years in power, faced Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari in a prestige battle widely seen as a symbolic rematch of Nandigram, where Adhikari had defeated her in 2021 after crossing over from the TMC to the BJP.
Five years later, the duel shifted to Banerjee’s own bastion. For the TMC, retaining Bhabanipur is about protecting the chief minister’s authority in her own backyard. For the BJP, breaching it would puncture the aura of invincibility around Bengal’s most powerful political figure.
The constituency witnessed nearly 87 per cent polling, sharply up from around 61 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls and 57 per cent in the bypoll that brought Banerjee back to the House.
Banerjee – who usually votes later in the day and prefers staying indoors on the day of polls – broke convention and hit the ground before 8 am, moving through Chetla, Padmapukur and Chakraberia areas following complaints of alleged intimidation of local TMC leaders.
As she sat outside a booth amid heavy deployment of central forces, Adhikari arrived there and declared, "I will not allow any hooliganism." He opposed Banerjee moving around with "50-60 people" with her.
Banerjee accused the BJP of trying to "rig" the election by using central forces, election observers and officials.
"The BJP wants to rig this election. Polls in Bengal are usually peaceful. Is there a goonda raj here?" she said, alleging intimidation of TMC polling agents and late-night visits by CRPF personnel to party workers’ homes.
"The atrocities by the central forces are unprecedented. What is happening is not at all free and fair polls. But despite all this, we have full faith that we will win," she said after casting her vote.
Adhikari dismissed the charges as "frustration", claiming Banerjee had realised that "not a single vote was coming her way".
Tension flared again in Kalighat when Adhikari visited another booth, and TMC workers raised slogans against him. Police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd as BJP supporters answered with counter-slogans. Reports of sporadic tension were also received from some other areas amid sights of long queues at polling stations, booth-level flare-ups, and political bickering.
In Kolkata's Entally, BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal alleged that the TMC's polling agents tried to assault her after she objected to overcrowding inside a booth and a lack of voter privacy.
In Panihati, BJP candidate and the R G Kar victim's mother, Ratna Debnath, faced protests, while her party colleague in Basanti, Bikash Sardar, alleged that "200 to 250 TMC goons" attacked his vehicle and assaulted his driver.
The TMC, meanwhile, accused the central forces of exercising brute force on the general voters at Falta's Belsingha village, especially women, who were beaten up during a move to disperse a crowd from near a polling station.The party also alleged CAPF high-handedness on women and a four-year-old child at Sathachhia in Howrah and on villagers at Ausgram in Purba Bardhaman district.
"In the name of ensuring security, central force jawans are not sparing even women who were brutally lathi-charged. TMC protests this highhandedness of the male jawans who exercised brute force on unarmed villagers. We draw the EC's attention to such illegal actions of the CAPF and ask the poll body to issue cease-and-desist orders against such use of force. We believe, people of Bengal will respond to this on EVMs," Anirban Banerjee, party spokesperson, said.
The BJP alleged that in several polling stations in Falta, the option to vote for the party was blocked using a tape over EVM poll buttons, and demanded repolls in the affected booths.
The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said repolling was likely to be announced in booths where EVMs were found tampered with. However, the order will only be issued after authorities receive reports from the district election officer or election observers regarding allegations of EVM tampering, such as using tapes or a blot of ink, he said.
