By Biswaraj Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, September 26, 20924: The Bharatpur police station atrocity matter involving an army officer and his fiancée has attracted global attention meanwhile primarily because the courageous victimised woman triggered big outcry in public by narrating the whole assault episode. What is made out of the whole version is that around the dead midnight hours when even the jackals and owls prepare to hit the bed, the unfortunate woman was circumstantially compelled to travel in a car with her fiancé down a desolate road in Bhubaneswar.

Allegedly she had got out of a pub while mischievous guys who had spotted her at the pub or bar earlier were provoked to chase her. A road rage ensued as is normal with a ‘bad boys and lone girl’ situation cropping up. The social media currently keeps showing video clips of the girl having been trapped by boisterous ‘bad’ boys quite in the middle of the road. Some altercations happened and her casual upper wear too gets pulled down by someone from the opposition group. She feels enormously offended and, instead of calling the patrolling police on the emergency number ‘112’, headed straight for the nearest police station at Bharatpur, projected as a model police unit in the state. She barges in to find sleepy little police creatures at the desk, in comfortable wear instead of the routine ‘Khaki’ and loses cool.

Instead of focusing on her being in trouble, she chooses to educate the police personnel on the inviolable ‘dress code’ and more, which ignites yet another altercation within the police station interiors. Strangely, the super model station did not have any close circuit television camera to capture actual action scenes.

More strangely, the commissioned army officer fiancé did not appear even for a fraction of a second to stand by her side or take control of the situation. As usual, the police personnel took advantage of the informant’s drunken state and nabbed her on that score. Allegedly, the station keepers, not in ‘Khaki’ assaulted her and put her behind the bars. The victim was thus further victimised as she narrated later to all across the wider world. They booked her for disproportionate alcohol consumption and got her down for a blood test at the nearest hospital, to which she naturally did not agree.

No one knows why the police did not analyse her breath with that simplest of devices they carry everywhere at night. They say now that she was extremely unruly and difficult for which she had to be tossed into the custody chamber. All this while, the commissioned officer fiancé did not show up at all. He had gone in hiding or left her in the lurch to suffer, perhaps because he too was drunk himself beyond the permissible limit.

Eventually, the next day, after the young woman was rescued, all hell was broken loose by herself and her relatives including the retired brigadier father. The masses lost cool over the news of a helpless young woman who was both daughter and fiancé of army officers respectively, having been tortured by the police at the dead of night- that too when she went to file complaint against unruly, indecent youths- had suffered at the hands of callous, and cruel police officials quite in the station premises.

The sensational news spread like wildest fire across the country and beyond with media trials running vigorously all over the country – all this on the version given by the victim woman. The Odisha police was roasted by one and all with the aid of the super active social media. The anti-police fever has not remitted satisfactorily even until now.

The 100-day Majhi administration came under horrific criticism and the gentleman chief minister instantly resorted to the easiest way out: suspend the frontline five officers including an already controversial, defamed IIC. Then it organised to nab the youths called wrongly ‘road Romeos’ that had played the midnight mischief with the girl during the road rage.

However the youths got bail in no time from the court which reprimanded the force for not abiding by the CrPC. The released young guys are now screaming hoarse that the woman was more ill-behaved and indecently arrogant, who made obscene gestures from the running car tearing through the dark of the night. The parents of the young men are now up in arms for the guys are all engineering students who were provoked by the fiancée woman with alcohol in the system.

As some core truth kept trickling out, the police force too got smart and came out in public to protest against the injustice meted out to colleague officials discharging duty as per norms followed around midnight.

The allegedly victimised woman has been showing broken jaws, bruises on the body and a fractured arm for which she is compelled to be carried in a wheel chair. No wonder, she has rightly garnered nearly the last drop of sympathy from all quarters and human communities for saying weepingly ‘that the police not only tortured her with third degree treatment, but also let the station boss IIC to outrage her modesty by being ineffably obscene.

The accused police officials deny all such charges saying the inebriated woman was not in her senses. She had created a ruckus unprovoked as she was under the spell of alcohol to invite trouble routinely. Some insiders of the station are believed to have revealed that the army officer’s fiancé was so disgusted with her as to hit her on the face resulting in a bruised or broken jaw. This could be a false allegation by some smart police guy to make self defence a bit robust.

In the wake of the global outcry against the Odisha police, the leader of opposition Naveen Patnaik demanded a judicial enquiry the moment the government ordered a crime branch investigation only. Majhi, being a perfect gentleman agreed with Naveen and organised a judicial enquiry without losing one moment as he realised that police investigator is likely to defend fraternity and put up a lopsided report. A highly reputed retired High Court judge Justice Chittaranjan Dash has been appointed as the master enquirer who will dig out the core truth flawlessly. CM Majhi has done the best possible thing to keep all motor-mouths shut for all times.

In the meantime, defence officials, both serving and retired have come together to display solidarity while on the other hand, the police official unions too have come out in protest against the arbitrary suspension of colleagues without giving them opportunity of being heard as per natural justice entitlements.

The only mystery bothering the masses is that the commissioned army officer fiancé has not yet come out in the open even once to defend the woman victim openly, or make any relevant statement.

The storm will completely subside only after the judicial enquiry comes up with the core truth.