Patiala: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said that there is no need for him to visit the Hoshiarpur rape case victim’s family as the police investigation is on.
Singh, who was speaking to media, was responding to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that, “A 6-year-old child of a Dalit migrant labourer from Bihar is raped, killed and body half-burnt in Hoshiarpur (Punjab) and it does not shake the conscience of the brother and sister who rush to every other place which can help them politically,”
Singh said, “There is no need for us to visit the Hoshiarpur rape case victim’s family as the police investigation is on. Police are in action. The accused has also been arrested. But in the case of Hathras incident, no police investigation was being done.”
Sitharaman had also said, “Why is the brother-sister pair not going and expressing horror in Hoshiarpur? Why not in Rajasthan? The selective cry of outrage that the Congress wants to show when it is elsewhere but not in their governed states has been exposed. Not a word from the tweet-friendly leader Rahul Gandhi. No tweets on this (Hoshiarpur rape incident), no outrage on this, and no picnic on this. A woman heads the party. Does this kind of selective outrage suit the stature of their party?”
Yesterday, trashing BJP senior leadership’s attack on his government over the Hoshiarpur rape-murder case, the Punjab Chief Minister had termed the remarks of Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Prakash Javadekar as political motivated, with no basis to support their criticism.
Contrary to what these leaders were claiming, there was no comparison between the Hoshiarpur and the Hathras cases, said Captain Amarinder, pointing out in the latter instance, the Uttar Pradesh government and police did not only fail to initiate stern action but in fact was seemingly trying to cover up the matter to benefit the upper caste accused.
This, he said, was in sharp contrast to the prompt action taken by the Punjab Police, who immediately arrested the accused and were now preparing to file the challan within a week. He himself had directed the DGP to ensure that the case is fast-tracked by the courts to ensure strict and exemplary action for the accused, said the Chief Minister.
In the horrifying incident, a six-year-old girl was allegedly raped, killed, and later set on fire and her half-burnt body was found at home at Jalalpur village in Tanda, police said on Thursday.
Two accused have been arrested by the police and further investigation is underway.