Bhopal, October 24
The rape victim controversy took a new turn today with the Chief Minister, Mr Digvijay Singh, claiming that the victim was paid Rs 1 lakh for her being present at the Prime Minister’s public meeting here.
After murdering her husband before her eyes, Jamunibai of Chhuvadalia village in Rajgarh district was gang raped and paraded naked in 1994.
At the public meeting addressed by the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, here on October 19, Jamunibai was presented to the Prime Minister and the audience by the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, Ms Uma Bharati, and described as a symbol of the atrocities on women in Mr Digvijay Singh’s regime.
The Chief Minister told a press conference at the PCC office today that Rs 1 lakh was put in a fixed deposit (FD) in the Zillah Sahakari Bank Maryadit (District Cooperative Bank Limited), Rajgarh, on October 11, 2003 in the joint names of Jamunibai and Mr Raghunandan Sharma, former BJP MLA from Rajgarh.
Under the terms of the fixed deposit, the interest on the amount deposited was to go to Jamunibai while her son had been entered as the nominee, he said.
He said that the matter would be taken to the Election Commission as it amounted to electoral malpractices.
