Bidya Bhusan Mohanti

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 20: Senior IPS officer Bidya Bhusan Mohanti has approached the National Human Rights Commission and its state equivalent in Rajasthan, requesting that his son Bitihotra be allowed to undergo treatment in a mental hospital or be sent to a jail in Orissa.

Bitihotra, also known as Bitti, has been “missing” since December 4 after jumping a fortnight-long parole granted to him by the authorities of Rajasthan’s Alwar. He is serving a seven-year sentence in the jail for the rape of a German woman in Alwar on March 20.

Alleging that torture in the Rajasthan jail by “hardened criminals” has made his son mentally ill, the senior officer demanded that Bitti be permitted to undergo treatment under relevant provisions of the mental health act.

A three-member team from Rajasthan police arrived in Cuttack today to inquire into the whereabouts of Bitti.

Officer in-charge of Cantonment police station Rabinarayan Satpathy said the team, comprising an officer and two constables, asked about the youth and the residence of his father.

The team later visited the official residence of Mohanti, director-general of the state home guards, but no member of the family was available.

The prison authorities have requested Orissa police to trace the convict and hand him over to them.

Amarananda Pattanayak, the director-general of Orissa police, said they received a message from Jaipur today with a request to find the missing convict. “We have enquired with his (Bitti’s) father and requested him to hand him over if he is in Orissa,” the DGP added.

Mohanti, however, claimed he was not aware of his son’s whereabouts but added that Bitti’s friends had told him that the youth was undergoing treatment at hospitals in Rajasthan.

“We contacted the hospitals but were told that he was not there,” said Mohanti. “His friends have also not kept in touch with us.”

The former jail IG said he was not happy with the way the Alwar jail authorities had been treating his son. “He is just a student and not a terrorist or gangster,” he said. The rape victim, Mohanti contended, was given importance because she was a foreigner.

Claiming that Bitti was innocent, the IPS officer said his son did not do anything without the German woman’s consent.

On November 20, Bitti was allowed to go on parole after his father deposited a surety of Rs 50,000. The youth was told to report to a police station every alternate day.