Pepper spray and an app: Congress's answer to violence against women in Bihar

(Reporting by Ashutosh Chandra)

PATNA: The Bihar unit of the Congress Party has come up with what it is touting as a solution to the issue of violence against women. The party has started distributing cans of pepper spray. The idea is that the pepper spray will buy threatened women enough time to notify friends or family that they are in danger using an app that it launched to mark Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary on Monday.

The Congress also sought to ink up the launch of its pepper spray and app bundle as a response to the ongoing scandal over the sexual abuse of children at government-run shelters at a number of places in Bihar.

The branding of the pepper spray and app combo leaves little to the imagination, what with elections around the corner - they are both called 'Indira Shakti' and prominently feature pictures of the namesake's grandson and present Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress's in-charge for Bihar, Shakti Singh Gohil has claimed that the app-pepper spray combo is a key answer to the problem of women's safety in Bihar. He also claimed that the pepper spray the Congress is handing out to women in the state is 20 times more potent than the sprays available on the market.

The Congress does not have it easy with the release of the app and the pepper spray. The main accused in the Muzaffarpur sexual abuse scandal, Brijesh Thakur, is said to have close links with the party. He had claimed that he was in talks with Congress leaders to contest elections on the party ticket. The Bihar Congress however has rubbished this and said it has no connection to Thakur.

The shocking abuse of girls at the shelter home in Muzaffarpur had come to light after one of the girls alleged that a fellow inmate had been beaten to death and buried on the premises. Medical tests on the subsequently rescued girls showed that more than half of the 40 girls lodged at the shelter home had been abused.