Agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy has been under fire from opposition parties after he hailed a lower court verdict acquitting two persons accused of rape. (File)A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the Odisha government to re-investigate the Pipili gang rape-and-murder case, Pradeep Maharathy, Minister of Agriculture in the Naveen Patnaik-led government resigned Sunday for his comments on the acquittal of the accused in the case dating back to 2011-2012, PTI reported.
On December 24, 2018, the court of additional district judge in Bhubaneswar had acquitted the two persons arrested in the case. Following the acquittal, Maharathy had said, “I welcome the court judgment. It is a victory of truth. The victim girl got justice.”
The statement had stoked a controversy with the opposition and the angered family of the victim seeking stringent action against the accused.
Mahila Congress members during a protest rally demanding expulsion of state’s Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathy. (PTI)A 19-year-old Dalit girl, who was raped in November 2011, died in June 2012 after remaining in a semi-comatose state, sparking a state-wide furore. It was alleged that the accused in the case had been sheltered by Maharathy.
Maharathy had to resign from the ministry at the time in the face of a state-wide hue and cry for allegedly sheltering the accused. He again became a minister after the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) returned to power in 2014.
While addressing a rally in at Baripada on Saturday, PM Modi had accused the Odisha government of not being serious about the welfare of women and girls saying, “This (state) government failed to give justice to a girl in an incident that took place 7 to 8 years ago in Puri district. It is natural that women and girls are angry over laxity in the investigation into the case for which the victim has been denied justice.”
