Dehradun, Aug 19 (PTI) Congress leaders on Monday staged protests against the recent surge in incidents of crime against women in Uttarakhand, slamming the BJP-led government and state police.
While Leader of Opposition in Uttarakhand Assembly Yashpal Arya led a one-hour “maun upwas” (silent fast) at Ranikhet, state Congress chief Karan Mahara observed it in Haldwani with other party leaders and workers.
Earlier in the day, Arya issued a statement saying the recent spate in incidents of rape and murder of women in Uttarakhand highlighted how unsafe they were in the BJP-led state.
“The rape and murder of a nurse from Rudrapur in Udham Singh Nagar district and the rape of a teenaged girl inside a bus at the ISBT in the state capital barely a week later show how insecure women have become in the state,” Arya said in a statement here.
The Congress leader also highlighted the alleged gangrape and murder of a minor recently in Haridwar.
The alleged rape of a teenager in an Uttarakhand Roadways bus at the ISBT within a few metres of a police post shows how “laidback” the state police is, Arya said.
“The state police is in deep sleep. Criminals have no fear of it. The state government has failed in its responsibility of providing protection to women,” he said.
Rebutting the Congress leader’s charges, state BJP media in-charge Manveer Chauhan said quick action was taken by the state government in each of the cases cited by him.
“The state government took quick action in each case. The track record of non-BJP governments in other states in this respect is not good,” Chauhan said.
Five persons have already been arrested in connection with the alleged rape of a teenaged girl in a bus at the ISBT here. The accused in the rape and murder of the nurse from Udham Singh Nagar is also behind bars, he said.
The Dehradun incident occurred on August 12 at the bus stand here and the police were informed about it Saturday evening, Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh had said on Sunday.
Those arrested in the case include the driver and the conductor of the government bus, according to the SSP.
In the Udham Singh Nagar incident, the private nurse was allegedly raped while returning home and killed with her face crushed with a stone by the accused who dumped her body in a vacant plot in a Uttar Pradesh village near the Uttarakhand border. PTI ALM RPA
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