Energy Minister Shobha Karandlaje, who recently embarrassed the government and the Bharatiya Janata Party by writing an open letter to Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar highlighting lapses in handling rape cases, has again shot off another missive to him accusing the government of not responding to the plight of victims of human trafficking.
In person
This time, she handed over the letter personally to Mr. Shettar and appealed to him to initiate stern measures to prevent human trafficking.
“The episode in which a Karnataka woman has been sold for Rs. 1 lakh in Delhi has highlighted the lapses in our system. We as women are concerned as the government and civil society have not acted though human trafficking is continuing unabated in the State,” Ms. Karandlaje, a prominent member in the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa camp, said in the letter.
Copies of the letter were released to the press on a day when the BJP held a convention of its women elected representatives in Bangalore on Wednesday.
Interestingly, Ms. Karandlaje, the lone woman member in the Shettar Ministry, stopped short of saying that she too is feeling insecure in the State: “What is the fate of lakhs of women, including me, who are living alone? What steps have been taken by you [Mr. Shettar] to protect women from rapists when they step out of their houses?”
Accusing the police of not continuing the investigations related to missing girls in thousands of cases, she said at least now the Police Department and the intelligence wing should wake up.
Demanding that the government launch a crackdown on human trafficking, she urged the Chief Minister to convene a high-level meeting of bureaucrats and a separate meeting of deputy commissioners of districts to fix responsibility of probing the links related to human trafficking. She also demanded that the Chief Minister convene a meeting of NGOs working in the field of women’s welfare to get suggestions from them.
