The Orissa Government on Friday suspended five policemen of Orissa State Armed Police, who allegedly stood watching as a 29-year-old Roman Catholic nun was gang-raped in Kandhamal district, on charges of official misconduct and negligence of duty.

Sub-Inspector Rasananda Mallick, Havildar Major K N Mohapatra and havildars S K Hamim, J S Khan and B K Mohanty were suspended for alleged dereliction of duty after a four-page joint report by Kandhamal District Collector Dr Krishan Kumar and SP Praveen Kumar proved their inaction, state Home Secretary T K Mishra said. Though the Home Secretary and the Collector refused to reveal details of the report, sources said the report was a damning evidence as to how the police became a mute spectator to the sordid saga of rape, molestation and public humiliation of the nun and the priest.

The five along with a few other jawans of 6th and 7th battalion of OSAP were camping at Kanjamendi-Nuagaon ME School in front of the Jan Vikash NGO where the nun was allegeldly raped and molested and Christian priest Fr Thomas Chellan bashed up during the Kandhamal riots on August 25 afternoon. The nun, at a press conference recently, recounted how she went to the policemen for escaping further humiliation after being raped. “I went to the policemen, asking them to protect me. I sat in between two policemen, but they did not move,” she said. Other villagers who witnessed the ordeal of the nun also confirmed that the armed policemen did not fire a single shot from their sophisticated INSAS rifles to scare off the assailants.

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