Woman sent to jail for stabbing Bihar legislator

PATNA - A Bihar court Thursday sent Rupam Pathak, accused of stabbing to death Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Raj Kishore Kesri at his residence in Purnia town, to judicial custody for 14 days, officials said.

According to officials, Pathak was presented in the Purnia court amid tight security.

“Her statement was also recorded,” a court official said.

The woman teacher, around 40 years old, went to Kesri’s home in Purnia Tuesday and stabbed him to death in the presence of a number of people.

The news of the killing spread rapidly across Bihar, where the BJP is the junior ally of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United (JD-U)-led government.

“He died soon after being stabbed because his vital organs were badly damaged,” an employee at Kesri’s house said.

Pathak alleged Kesri had raped her for over three years, a charge refuted by the party.

Kesri, a BJP legislator from Purnia assembly constituency, was 51.

Rupam was brought from neighbouring Katihar town, where she was admitted in a hospital in a critical condition after being badly beaten up by Kesri’s security guards and supporters following the murder.

Purnia’s Deputy Inspector General Amit Kumar told IANS that a first information report (FIR) was registered Thursday against Pathak and two others, including Navlesh Pathak, an editor of a local English weekly Quisling, who had first reported about Rupam’s sexual harassment complaint.

Kumar said Navlesh was arrested following an FIR filed in the local police station.

Ruma Pathak, Navlesh’s wife, alleged that police was biased in its inquiry and apprehended a threat to him in custody.

A chargesheet is likely to be filed soon, a police officer said.

However, opposition parties, including the Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), have demanded a judicial inquiry into the case.

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.

But Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi has ruled out both the options.

“There is no possibility of the state government handing over an inquiry into the Kesri murder case to the CBI at the moment,” the BJP leader said.

“We also don’t feel the necessity of ordering a judicial probe,” he said, adding that the state police was fully competent to conduct investigation into the case.

Interestingly, some BJP leaders and legislators are also in favour of a CBI probe.

Nitish Kumar has also directed the state’s Director General of Police to thoroughly review the security of all legislators.