Anjana Mishra Now Has A Reason To Smile , For A While, After 22 Years Of Moaning

It is like taking the clock back. A development which has come back to focus from a tragic incident in Odisha which took place 22 years back. It was a brutal gang rape in which a lady called Anjana Mishra was the victim.

The incident had taken place about 20 kms away from Bhubaneswar when the victim along with her friend, was having food in a road-side Dhaba located at a desolate location. Like vipers lying in wait, the culprits chased them from there and overpowered and dragged them to a nearby field where she was subjected to the gang rape in a night 1999 January.

Although the police could apprehend two of them the kingpin or the master-mind of the entire atrocity Biban Biswal managed to disappear from all radars of the law for the last 22 years and was apprehended a day back in Mumbai where he was living in the guise as Jalandhar Swain, working as a skilled worker.

It has come as a respite for the lady in question but a deadly culprit giving the dodge to the entire police apparatus, including the CBI sleuths, for 22 years, has become a question in itself staring on the face of the police.

It is a different matter that the Odisha police is now indulged in a self-back patting exercise claiming credit after over two decades of groping in dark.

Anjana Mishra is not a new name neither her sufferings had started then and now it is over. Her sufferings started much earlier when she allegedly was subjected to yet another high-profile misconduct of the then Advocate General of Odisha, Indrajit Ray.

The matter suddenly pitchforked itself to become a case which by its sheer severity, nearly rocked the political system of Odisha when the then chief minister late J B Patnaik somehow became a punching bag for the opposition.

It became an inferno, even if the presence of electronic media was very skeletal then. But the issue soon turned to become an issue from the legislature down to the tea shops.

The churning by the media clicked well and it came as a sigh of relief for Anjana but a political earthquake for the then chief minister, who had to make an unceremonious departure from power.

And his fault was stated to be his indirect support to Ray, both politically and administratively, as a shield. He perhaps failed to assess the power of the people’s perception and role of the media which nailed him down once for all, politically.

After which Anjana Mishra, after a brief stint of limelight walked back to her isolation. It was in a January chilly night when she was on her way to Cuttack to meet her lawyer fighting her case against Ray, that the hell broke loose on her.

When they left the Dhaba after refreshment, the three culprits were already on their toes and after a while, they overpowered Anjana’s friend and subjected the lady to a brutal act of gang rape in a field. She was practically waylaid after the beastly assault in that deadly hour of the night.

As described earlier, two of the three accused were apprehended but the master-mind Biban gave a slip to the police and disappeared.

Now, after 22  years, he was arrested from a place in Maharashtra with the help of the local cops there, which morally doesn’t allow the Odisha police the lion share of credit or any chest-thumping.

Good that he has been arrested and has to undergo the trials but, for Anjana, it is just a mental consolation while compared to her life in isolation and the mental consternation lasting over two decades. 

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