PANAJI
Women leaders of constituent parties of the INDIA bloc on Monday accused the double-engine government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of failing to ensure a “safe environment” for women in the State and the country.
They said the ruling BJP is brazenly welcoming criminals into their fold and hence justice cannot be expected from such politicians in power.
Manisha Usgaonkar (INC), Ashma Bi (GFP), and Cecille Rodrigues (AAP), who jointly addressed a press conference at the Congress headquarters in Panaji on Monday, said the government has totally failed to protect women’s interests.
“How safe is our country? We are termed as an unsafe nation. In Goa also we are not safe,” said AAP’s Cecille Rodrigues, quoting India’s rank at 128 out of 177 countries on women safety.
Rodrigues also cited recent incidents of violence against women and children, including the murder of a Mapusa girl whose body was cut into pieces and taken outside Goa to be dumped somewhere in Maharashtra and the rape and murder of a five-year-old child at a construction site
in Vasco.
Ashma Bi of the Goa Forward Party said crimes against women have increased in the last five years.
Usgaonkar raised the issue of rising cybercrimes with the government clueless of how to tackle it.
“Police are under political pressure. They should be given a free hand to deal with crime,” Usgaonkar said.
