Kopardi gangrape issue rocks Maharashtra Assembly

The gangrape and killing of a minor girl in Ahmednagar district rocked the Maharashtra Assembly on Monday, as the monsoon session of state legislature got underway.

Making a statement after ruckus by the Opposition in the Lower House, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the accused in the gangrape and killing of the girl in Kopardi village of Ahmednagar district, have been arrested and the matter will be heard in a fast-track court.

Ujjawal Nikam will be the public prosecutor, he said.

The state government has given Rs 5 lakh financial help to the victim's family, Fadnavis said.

DNA samples of the victim and the accused have been sent for forensic tests, he said.

Raising the issue in the Lower House, Nationalist Congress Party legislator Ajit Pawar said the Kopardi case was more heinous than the Nirbhaya gangrape in Delhi.

"I request CM Fadnavis to take action against the guilty, considering the victim as your and our daughter," Pawar, a former deputy chief minister, said.

Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan insisted that the House discuss the issue on Monday itself.

Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, who raised the issue through an adjournment notice, said the matter was serious and the House should discuss it.

Fadnavis said the matter could be discussed in a meeting of party group leaders in the House, before it is discussed in the Assembly.

The House was later adjourned after transacting other items on the agenda, which included paying condolences to former members of the House and introduction of new ministers.

A 15-year-old girl was brutally raped last week, allegedly by three men who inflicted injuries all over her body and broke her limbs before throttling her in the village in Ahmednagar district, sparking outrage as well as political slugfest, with the Congress demanding Fadnavis' resignation on "moral grounds".