Another arrest in Pipili gangrape case

Another accused in the Pipili gangrape case in Odisha was arrested today even as the state government failed to convince the family of the dalit rape victim to shift her to AIIMS in Delhi for better treatment.

Crime Branch sleuths nabbed Premananda Nayak named in the FIR registered at Pipili police station on January 9. "Nayak was arrested from the house of one of his relations at Olakana village under Pipili police station area," police said.

With this, the total number of accused persons arrested in the incident rose to three. Efforts are on to trace another accused, Abua Pradhan of Paparanga village.

An official team met the victim's brother Amulya Behera at SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack, where the girl was under treatment, but their efforts to convince the brother to shift her to AIIMS failed, official sources said.

"The brother rejected government's offer in writing and suggested bringing super specialists from outside if required," an official said adding the family was afraid of going outside the state.

"They (alleged rapists) might kill us in Delhi. We do not feel secure to visit AIIMS," the brother told reporters.

Another official team led by Puri Tehsildar Abani Patnaik visited the victim's Arjungada village but found none at her house. "As her parents were not there, we returned after hanging an information sheet on the door to intimate them that state government representatives had visited their village," an official told PTI.

Meanwhile, the state government informed the Orissa High Court about the views of the girl's family doctor on shifting her to the AIIMS, Delhi for better treatment.

The High Court had yesterday had made it clear that the victim could not be shifted to AIIMS without prior permission of her parents.

Prasanta Pradhan, the prime accused in the dalit girl rape case, was arrested on Sunday and sent to judicial custody for 14 days. The police had yesterday nabbed Purna Chandra Swain another accused from Pipili area.

Swain was produced before Judicial Magistrate, Pipili, Meenakshi Priyadarshini, who sent him to two days' remand of the Crime Branch (CB) for further interrogation.

The youth and student wings of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) staged separate agitations here demanding CBI probe into the alleged rape case and sacking of Odisha minister Pradeep Maharathy accusing him of "shielding" the accused.

Ruling BJD activists and supporters of the minister, on the other hand, blocked the Bhubaneshwar-Puri National Highway alleging that the third accused, Nayak, was taking shelter in the house of a Congress supporter.

They withdrew the road blockade after the minister asked them not to put people in trouble by blocking the NH.