Bhubaneswar: A day after creating a storm by terming the kidnapping and murder of five-year-old Nayagarh girl 'Pari’ ‘a minor incident’, BJD vice-president and Khandapada MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik on Saturday took a U-turn, claiming that his version had been distorted by some people for gaining political mileage.
"Some people with a bleak political future are trying to politicise my statement by distorting it. I don't have any issue with them. I wrote an article over the matter and they should go through and analyse it properly. I had mentioned in my piece that the entire episode had begun from a missing case which later snowballed into a major controversy," he said.
Patnaik further added "if the police had act tough from the beginning and nabbed the accused by investigating the case properly, we would not have faced such a situation in the Assembly today. What was wrong with my statement?"
Reacting to Soumya's clarification, Leader of Opposition in the Odisha Assembly, Pradipta Nayak said the murder of a common man becomes a ‘minor’ incident for an MLA where as a similar incident involving an affluent family would have been a ‘big’ one for him.
"Pari, being a small girl, had no enemy. We want to know the hospital in Bhubaneswar where her organ was extracted and who is that high-profile person on whom the organ was transplanted. We want a fair investigation covering all these aspects. It’s not a minor case," Nayak added.
On Friday, Soumya's statement drew flak from the Opposition. The BJP came down heavily on the ruling party MLA from Khandpada for such 'shameful mentality'.
Meanwhile, the government today announced in the Assembly to institute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for the investigation into the sensational murder of Pari. A day after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced the SIT probe while taking part in the Assembly proceedings through video-link, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh on Saturday informed the Assembly that a notification will be issued soon in this regard.
On the other hand, the Minister’s announcement also failed to pacify the members of opposition BJP who continued to target the government in the House demanding the ouster of Minister Arun Sahoo for his alleged complicity in the case. The pandemonium forced Speaker SN Patro to adjourn the House till 3 pm.