Alwar rape case: Forgotten Bitti

Report: D N Singh

Bhubaneswar, May 30: Ironically in the entire episode of Orissa DGP BB Mohanty what seems to be conspicuously missing is the real man to be pinned down. That is Bittihotra Mohanty, the convict in the rape case. However, one needs no extraordinary common sense to guess the plight of the Rajasthan police who is trying to pound on B B Mohanty, as if the top cop has Bitti in his left pocket. Even the media seems to have invested more of its time on the senior Mohanty and chase the guys from Rajasthan that seems to be in a state of a wander lost in the whole labyrinth. In November 2006 Bitti came out in parole from the jail for which the senior Mohanty had signed on the Rs 50,000 surety which was no wrong in any way. Any father would have done it in his place. However, the case became complex once Bitti jumped the parole and the focus shifted on to his father and the latter stated that he had never gone to Jaipur in Nov 06, let alone sign the surety. But, the Lal Kothi police station in Jaipur has put its foot firm to maintain that, it has all the needed evidence to prove that DGP Mohanty himself had signed the surety and later had helped Bitti to jump the parole. Let’s think for a while that, senior Mohanty had not gone to Jaipur as regards the parole. Does it mean that someone there had signed in proxy? If so then, it could be a highly offensive act and if it had happened, as apprehended by some, then how such an offence could be committed under the nose of the watchful cops there? Is the system so porous there or it was a hand-in-glove operation. On the other hand if senior Mohanty had gone there in person and fulfilled formalities then why did the Rajasthan police not come out with hard evidence to prove its point? The fact remains that, as Mohanty’s father has every right to help his son to get parole and then it was for the jail authorities in Rajasthan to limit the movement of Bitti during the parole period. After getting the parole if the convict had stepped out of his limits, one cannot say, off-hand, that the father had reneged on his promises in the surety or he had plotted the jump. Meanwhile there were rounds of legal tug-of-wars at the Orissa High Court in which Mohanty kept on getting lease of lives from the claws of Rajasthan police. When things appeared very corrigible this side, Mohanty looked for respite from the Rajasthan High Court and filed a petition there seeking to quash charges against him under 225,130,230 and 216 IPC. Frankly speaking one requires no degree of common sense to guess the simple fact that senior Mohanty will jeopardise the safety of his only son by informing the police where Bitti is, if at all he knows his whereabouts. That is as a father, but as a senior guardian of the law of the land it is for Mohanty to decide whether his son can escape the clear conclusion of such a course. Nor can his family afford to burn midnight oil for all times to come. Mohanty enjoys the freedom in `hideout`, wherever he is getting treated, till May 31 only and he expects that he would get a respite from the Rajasthan High Court and see eye to eye at the cops from Jaipur. Rajasthan police on its part is a tired lot. For the whole day on May 28, 2007 the team led by a DSP rank officer hounded places in the millennium city in the blistering heat to catch the top cop who reportedly was on sick leave till May 31. That leaves the cops from the Pink City guessing as to whether the local police is really cooperating with them or not. For the local cop clan it may be a prestige issue deep within that, such a high ranking officer of their fraternity be dragged by a herd of junior cops from Rajasthan as if he is a hardened criminal or a habitual offender. Be that as it may, the focus has shifted from Bitti to BB, with the latter being chased by cops followed by a battery of media people. But the livewire, Bitti, is forgotten like over 3,800 parole jumpers in the country today.