Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 31: The suspended BJP leader of Jharkhand Seema Patra who was arrested on Wednesday morning for allegedly torturing her domestic help, a tribal woman, was exposed by her own son whose complaints led the police to rescue the woman.
Seema, who was later sent to 14 days of judicial remand, however, maintained that “she was innocent” and her arrest was a “politically motivated.” She also claimed that her son Ayushman was a mental patient and she had got her admitted in a psychiatric hospital.
Seema Patra was a member of the national working committee of the BJP’s women wing. According to her Facebook profile, Ms Patra was also the state convenor of centre’s ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign.
She was suspended by the BJP on Tuesday after videos of her domestic help, Sunita, accusing her of torture went viral and sparked a massive outrage. The police, said, they have so far found no evidence against her husband, Maheshwar Patra, a retired IAS officer.
It was Ms Patra’s son Ayushman who saved her, she said. “It is only because of him that I am alive,” she said in the video, weeping. Sunita was rescued last week after Ayushman, apparently disturbed by the abuse, confided in a friend, shared videos and asked him to help. His friend Vivek Anand Baskey, a government officer, went to the police. After rescuing her from the Patras’ home, the police took her to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for treatment, officials said.
Sunita, the help, had been working for her for 10 years. In the video, Sunita is seen on a hospital bed with wounds on her body and face. The 29-year-old woman could barely speak as she alleged that she was held captive, tortured and beaten with rods and an iron pan. Many of her teeth were missing and she couldn’t sit up. She alleged that she was forced to lick urine off the floor. “She also broke my teeth with an iron rod,” Sunita said.
She was allegedly not given food or water for days. Sunita’s videos, which are in wide circulation now, have evoked strong reactions. Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais too met with Director General of Police Neeraj Sinha on Tuesday and expressed “serious concern” over the delay in action against the suspended BJP leader.
A press release issued by the Governor House stated: “Seema Patra, wife of a former IAS officer, physically abused her domestic help in Ashok Nagar in Ranchi and why the DGP has not acted against the accused. It is a grave problem…In Palamu district, under Pandu Police Station, a particular community drove 50 Dalits out of their homes. It is worrisome.”
Ms Patra, when she came to know that her son was trying to save the domestic help, got him admitted at the Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied Sciences claiming that he was suffering from mental illness. The son, however, disagreed.
Ms Patra claimed that the allegations against her are politically motivated, and she has been falsely implicated in the case. While being led away by the police, she told the media she was framed. “I am innocent,” she said.
But the police confirmed that it was her son who had spilled the secret about the torture of the domestic help. According to the FIR in the case, “complainant Vivek Anand Baskey, a government employee, received a message from Patra’s son Ayushman, detailing the physical violence going on against the domestic help in the house.”
The FIR stated that “Ayushman also showed pictures of the domestic help with bruises. Patra allegedly got her son admitted to a psychiatric centre when he started complaining about the physical torture of the domestic help,” reads the FIR. “With the help of the police, the son was taken to a psychiatric hospital where he shouted at his mother: ‘You made her [domestic help] drink her own urine. What kind of inhuman person you are’,” it says.
The Ranchi Police had rescued the woman from Ms Patra’s residence last week and recorded the domestic help’ statement on Tuesday before a magistrate, sources said. Ms. Patra had allegedly kept the woman captive in her residence in Ranchi’s posh Ashok Nagar area for several years.
Members of various tribal outfits visited Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) where the woman is undergoing treatment and met her.
