Moga molestation case: Victim's family agrees to cremate teenage girl, ready to take compensation
‘I want to request that I want to perform the last rites of my daughter’
Moga (Punjab): Ending a four-day deadlock, father of the girl who was molested and pushed to death from a moving bus here today agreed to conducting of post-mortem and cremation of the body besides accepting the offer of compensation and a government job.
The develompent came while an under-attack Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal described the incident as "intolerable" and "painful" and the police said all the four accused had been arrested.
"I want to request that I want to perform the last rites of my daughter," the victim's father told reporters. He also said that he had agreed for the post-mortem "without any pressure".
The father had so far been refusing to perform the cremation till a case was filed against Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and others who own the Orbit bus service and cancellation of licence to it. He had been staging a sit-in along with some local politicians to press his demands.
"Whatever the state government has offered to us is acceptable to me. They (state government) have fulfilled our demands and have assured us that my daughter's killer will be punished," the victim's father said.
About compensation, he said he did not know about the quantum. "I cannot say about compensation. Whatever has been given to me is sufficient for me. I am happy that I will move away from here with my daughter," he said.
Read: Punjab deputy CM Sukhbir Badal orders Orbit buses off the road
The government had earlier offered a compensation of Rs 20 lakh, a government job for her mother, her free treatment and holding trial of the case in a fast track court but the family had rejected it.
He also sought an end to the protest launched over this matter. "This protest should now come to an end...my daughter has already died. If my wife (who is in hospital) dies, then what will be the use of my life? Now I want to lead a normal life," he said.
Thanking those who supported him, he insisted, "Nobody including government or any officer has ever threatened me (for compromise)."
Meanwhile, expressing concern over the "deteriorating law and order situation" in Punjab and the incident, senior Congress leader and former Union minister Manish Tewari said that there was feeling of fear and insecurity prevailing among people everywhere in the state.
"The black 'badals' (clouds) of fear and insecurity are hovering over the horizon across Punjab," he said.
He said, what happened in Moga was the outcome of the deteriorating law and order situation as the criminals have no fear of law.
"It is a strange irony that while the common man is feeling scared and insecure the criminals have no fear of law. They are committing all sorts of crimes with brute impunity," he said, while adding, this is because those supposed to govern seem to have forgotten governance are instead focused on their own personal interests.
Tewari said, the situation had reached a flash point and people of Punjab were feeling restive and restless. "It is high time for the government to act or leave as otherwise
Punjab was doomed into anarchy", he warned.
Amrinder Singh Raja Warring MLA of Gidderbaha and President Indian Youth Congress said the whole probe should be handed over to CBI as the "people of Punjab know that police is acting like puppets in the hands of Badals".
Read: Moga molestation case: Kin refuse to cremate girl, want bus permit cancelled
He said that the deceased family is being continuously threatened by the Badals in some way or other and Punjab police is a part to it.
Warring also said that the opposition parties should unite and fight for the family together. "This is not a mere case of molestation, a young dalit girl died in the moving bus of Badals and she was brutally molested by the goons of Badal transport (Orbit)," he said.
Warring also questioned the silence of BJP on the matter. "Don't they have daughters? None of their leaders in the state or at the Centre even gave a statement for the bereaved family," he said.
The Narendra Modi government had launched 'Beti Bachao Beti Padao' campaign and this is the actual face of the government where in for the last three days there is no sympathetic word from any of the leaders of BJP, he said.