Prime Accused in Odisha Gangrape Case That Led to CM s Resignation Arrested After 22 Years
Described as the turning point in the Odisha political history, the gangrape cost Congress its last government in the state under J.B. Patnaik in 1999, and the party never regained power.
Representative photo: Public domain
Women23/Feb/2021
New Delhi: The prime accused in a sensational gangrape that shook Odisha in its aftermath in 1999 and resulted in the resignation of the then Congress chief minister J.B. Patnaik is finally in the police net.
While the two other accused, who were later convicted, had been arrested within weeks after the crime in 1999, the prime accused had been evading arrest for over two decades. One of the convicts had even died last year while serving life imprisonment, while the other is still lodged in jail. Police who nabbed the prime accused say that he was “sure” that he would not be caught in his lifetime, and had taken over a new identity and had procu
Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: Twenty-two years after the gangrape of the estranged wife of an IFS officer rocked the country and caused a political shakeup in Odisha, almost costing former Chief Minister Janaki Ballabh Patnaik his job, police have finally managed to nab the prime accused Biban alias Bibekananda Biswal.
Biban had been absconding since 1999 and the CBI, which had been entrusted the investigation into the incident by the Orissa High Court had failed to trace him in all these years. He was suspected to have died or murdered.
Even as the case had been put in cold storage for over a decade, the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Commissionerate Police recently reopened the file after getting some leads on Biban. And it launched Operation Silent Viper to track him down.
Bhubaneswar: February 22: The prime accused in the sensational 1999 gang rape case involving the estranged wife of an IFS officer has been arrested from Maharashtra, police said on Monday.
The incident had led to the resignation of the then Odisha Chief Minister Janaki Ballabh Patnaik in 1999 after huge outrage in the state.
Biban alias Bibekanand Biswal, who was absconding for the last 22 years, was arrested from Aamby Vally in Lonavala, informed Police Commissioner Sudhansu Sarangi.
The Police Commissioner said that Biban had hidden in Aamby Vally in Pune by changing his name to Jalandhar Swain and was working there as a plumber.