Jamui/Patna, Sep 22 Police on Tuesday claimed to have nabbed the “two main accused” in the molestation of a minor girl in Jamui district of Bihar, even as the war of words continued between the ruling NDA and its opponents over the horrific incident.
The two men were nabbed following an encounter in which both were injured. With this, the total number of people held in connection with the September 19 incident has reached five, including three minors.
The teenage girl and a boy, who were said to be studying at the same coaching centre, were caught hold of by the group on a road and allegedly harassed. Video clips circulating on social media purportedly showed the girl being molested.
Jamui SP Biswajeet Dayal told a press conference that Nandan Yadav, who was spotted in the viral video, with a scarf covering his face while he groped the girl, received a bullet injury in his leg as the police personnel retaliated when he opened fire on them.
“An SIT had been constituted to investigate the incident. Three minor boys were detained yesterday. Raids were on today for the remaining accused. When Nandan and his accomplice Hareram were spotted by a police team this morning, the former opened fire. He is undergoing treatment at a hospital along with Hareram, who fractured his knee while trying to flee the spot,” said the SP.
The incident, which had taken place at a place close to the district’s border with adjoining Lakhisarai, came to light on Monday when video clips, apparently shot by some of the accused, went viral on social media.
The girl was seen, in the video, flailing her arms and legs helplessly upon being picked up by one of the accused and touched inappropriately by others in the group, until her friend begged them for mercy and the duo scurried away, with the perpetrators chasing them for some distance.
The SP has claimed that police acted after the video went viral because neither the girl nor his male friend came up with a complaint.
DIG Munger Range Rakesh Kumar, who was camping in Jamui, which falls under his jurisdiction, told PTI over phone: “The minor boys will be presented before the Juvenile Justice Board for further action.”
Nandan and Hareram will face a normal trial, and if their interrogation leads to any further clues, more arrests may follow, Kumar said.
“The incident was horrifying, but equally appalling was the act of sharing the video clips on social media, in which the girl’s face could be seen clearly. Those responsible for circulating the video will also be booked under the IT Act,” said ADG Law and Order K Suhita Anupam, while talking to PTI Videos in Patna.
The incident drew condemnation from far-off quarters. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said in her parliamentary constituency Wayanad in Kerala, “There is no point in having big schemes and programmes when we cannot ensure that our women can be safe on the streets”.
Earlier, on Monday, her brother and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had come out with a strongly worded statement calling the incident “deeply disturbing” and demanding that all the accused be booked under the POCSO Act.
RJD working president Tejashwi Yadav, whose party is a Congress ally, alleged that the incident was symbolic of “collapse of law and order”.
He also deplored the use of the expression “chhit put ghatna” (stray incident) by JD(U) legislature party leader and minister Shrawon Kumar and the party’s state unit chief Umesh Singh Kushwaha.
However, the BJP came out with a social media post claiming that Nandan Yadav, who often wore a saffron “gamcha” and sported a red “tilak” on his forehead, was “a devotee of Lalu Prasad”, the RJD’s founding president.
Prasad’s Singapore-based daughter Rohini Acharya hit back, raking up BJP leaders’ alleged support to perpetrators of infamous rape cases like Kathua, Hathras and Bilkis Bano.
BJP leader and Jamui MLA Shreyasi Singh ended up with her foot in the mouth when she told a news channel: “If moral policing is needed, it can be done in a decent way”.
The young leader’s statement was carried by the Congress on its social media handle with the claim that it was reflective of the “BJP’s patriarchal mindset”.
Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor described the incident as ” horrifying and scary “.
Kishor claimed that such incidents had been “on the rise” since the ascent to power of Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary who had “criminal antecedents”.
He also said that the NDA had been able to stay in power for over two decades “not because of any good work but only because memories of the jungle raj during RJD’s rule are still fresh in the minds of the people of Bihar”.
Union ministers Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’, a former national president of the JD(U), and Jitan Ram Manjhi also taunted the RJD, raking up “jungle raj”.
Lalan, a former state minister, claimed that until JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar became the CM in 2005, women in the state “feared to step out of their houses after sunset”.
Manjhi, a former chief minister who had also been a minister in the government of Rabri Devi, the wife of Lalu Prasad, also wrote on X that the accused belonged to the numerically powerful Yadav caste “who are all considered by Tejashwi Yadav as his brothers”.
“Let Tejashwi Yadav rein in his brothers, else he will have to keep whining that his brethren were being targeted by Samrat Choudhary government which cares only for good governance”, added Manjhi, who heads the Hindustani Awam Morcha.
(PTI News)
