The recent events unfolding in Odisha paint a disturbing portrait of our collective failure to protect the most vulnerable members of society. Within the span of just days, multiple incidents have emerged that force us to confront uncomfortable truths about whom we trust, how we respond to violations of that trust, and the desperate measures parents feel compelled to take when institutional protections fail.
The Betrayal of Sacred Spaces
There exists a profound irony in cases where individuals who position themselves as spiritual guides exploit their elevated status to commit unspeakable acts. In Cuttack district's Kendupatna area, a fifty-year-old man who presented himself as a religious figure allegedly committed an act that represents the ultimate betrayal of community trust. A seven-year-old child, engaged in the innocent task of purchasing items from a neighbourhood shop, became a victim when this self-proclaimed holy man lured her to a nearby religious establishment and sexually assaulted her.
What makes this incident particularly chilling is the calculated nature of the crime. The perpetrator didn't act impulsively in a moment of lost control; rather, he actively lured a child away from public view, taking her into what should have been a sanctuary a religious institution and transformed that sacred space into a chamber of trauma. The child was simply running an errand, performing one of those small tasks that mark the boundary between dependency and growing independence. Instead of returning home with her purchases, she returned with scars that no amount of time may fully heal.
When Fathers Become Judge and Executioner
In Dhenkanal district's Parjang police station area, another tragedy unfolded—one that illustrates the raw desperation of parents trying to protect their children in the moment when protection matters most. A father and his ten-year-old daughter had ventured to a canal for what should have been an ordinary bathing ritual on a last week. After they finished, the young girl walked a short distance away for privacy to relieve herself and a basic human need that should never come with the risk it apparently does.
A twenty-seven-year-old man allegedly attacked the child during this vulnerable moment. Her screams brought her father running. In those critical seconds, faced with his daughter under assault, the father seized a rock and struck the attacker by killing him instantly. This wasn't a prolonged confrontation or a meditated act of revenge. It was a parent, confronted with every parent's nightmare, reacting with lethal force to stop an ongoing attack on his child.
The father subsequently surrendered himself to authorities, transforming from protector to defendant in a matter of hours. The details reveal the full horror: the assailant, identified as Karunakar Behera from a nearby settlement, had reportedly followed the girl deliberately when waiting for the moment she was isolated and defenseless.
The Anatomy of Protective Violence
Another account provides even more granular detail about this incident. The father, identified as Rupa Pinga, forty-five years old, had brought his eighteen-year-old daughter to a village pond on last week morning. The presence of both a ten-year-old and eighteen-year-old daughter in different accounts suggests either multiple incidents or inconsistencies in reporting itself a concerning commentary on how these stories get transmitted and recorded.
According to this version, Behera was already present near the pond when the family arrived. When the daughter went to relieve herself, he followed her and attempted to sexually assault her. Her screams alerted Pinga, who grabbed a stick and began beating the assailant. Behera attempted to flee, falling into a drainage channel in his panic, but the enraged father pursued him. There, in that nullah, Pinga picked up a stone and delivered the fatal blow to Behera's head.
Police discovered the body that evening and detained Pinga. The deceased's father filed a complaint, and a scientific team examined the scene. Now Pinga faces questioning and potential prosecution for killing the man who allegedly tried to rape his daughter.
The Impossible Choice
How do we reckon with this? The law, in its structured rationality, doesn't permit citizens to serve as judge, jury, and executioner. Civilized society requires that we channel our response to wrongdoing through established systems of justice rather than immediate retaliation. Yet the law's measured pace seems cruelly inappropriate when applied to a father's split-second decision to save his child from sexual violence.
Pinga didn't hunt down Behera hours or days later in an act of vigilante revenge. He intervened in an active assault, and in the chaos and fury of that intervention, a man died. We can simultaneously acknowledge that taking a life is a grave act requiring legal accountability while recognizing the profound moral distinction between violence sought and violence thrust upon someone defending their child.
A Control Required
These stories from Odisha are not about distant problems in unfamiliar places. They reflect challenges present in varying forms across our entire society. Every parent reading these accounts will feel the cold fear of recognition of , “that could be my child, that could be my impossible choice”.
The children of Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, and Dhenkanal deserve better than to be statistics in a recurring pattern of predation and desperate protection. They deserve a society that has thought carefully about their safety before tragedy strikes, not one that reacts with hand-wringing after the fact. Whether we create that society depends on choices we make in the days and years ahead—choices about accountability, institutional design, and our collective commitment to protecting those who cannot protect themselves. The rock Rupa Pinga wielded in that nullah should haunt us all, not because he picked it up, but because the society we've built left him no better option.
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