Odisha incident: Congress demands Army chief urge PM to take action against guilty
New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday urged the Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi to reach out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to seek action in the Odisha incident in which an army officer and his fiance were assaulted inside a police station.
“Chief of Army Staff that he must reach out to the Prime Minister and tell him that enough is enough. The Army Chief should also convey to the Prime Minister that all this is not acceptable to them (the army personnel). Is this how a defence personnel is treated by some ‘uniformed goons’ inside a police station in the BJP-ruled state of Odisha,” Congress’ Ex-Serviceman Department Chairman Col Rohit Chaudhary (retd) said at a press conference along with Odisha in-charge Ajoy Kumar at the party headquarters here.
Chaudhary added that under the Army Act, no Army officer can be detained without any case and those responsible can be terminated immediately.
“The Army officer, accompanying his fiance who was brutalised inside the police station, had been unlawfully kept in custody for 14 hours,” he said.
Ajoy Kumar questioned PM Modi and the Defence Minister as to when would they speak about the shameful incident that took place inside a police station in Odisha.
“There is anger and outrage across the country over this incident,” Ajoy Kumar said.
He asked when would PM Modi write a full-page editorial in leading newspapers, saying “Enough is enough” about the incidents that have taken place with the defence personnel and their family member and friends in the BJP-ruled states of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Rajasthan.
The Congress leaders also demanded immediate dismissal of all the police officials responsible for the brutality with the officer’s fiancee, who is the daughter of a retired Brigadier, a judicial probe, and the setting up of an Ex-Servicemen Commission on the pattern of the SC/ST Commission.
On September 15, an army officer along with his fiance was brutally assaulted inside a police station in Bhubaneswar. While narrating her ordeal, the army officer’s fiance said that she was physically and sexually harassment harassed inside the police station.