Demonstrators shout slogans as they try to cross a police barricade during a protest outside the police headquarters in New Delhi yesterday.
New Delhi: The capital was rocked by angry street protests again yesterday against the barbaric rape of a five-year-old girl who doctors said has suffered serious injuries to her private parts while the accused was nabbed from Bihar and brought back here.
Doctors said the girl’s condition was stable but she would need major reconstructive surgery to her private parts due to the brutal sexual assault.
Condemnation of the rape came from President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Hamid Ansari, while Congress president Sonia Gandhi paid a quiet visit to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where the girl is being treated and met her and her parents. Gandhi’s visit came even as a candle light vigil was held outside AIIMS by protesters.
A joint team of Delhi and Bihar Police succeeded in nabbing the rape accused, Manoj Kumar, 22, from his in-laws house in Chitkouna village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district. He was flown to Delhi in a chartered plane and is being interrogated by police.
The girl, a resident of east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar, was abducted by Manoj, a labourer, who lived on the ground floor of the same house in the working class neighbourhood. He kept her hostage for two days without food and water and subjected her to brutal repeated rape.
She was rescued when her family members heard her screams on Wednesday, police said. The accused had locked the door from outside and fled, thinking that she had died. “She was locked in the room for over 40 hours,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Prabhakar.
Doctors at AIIMS in an evening bulletin said the girl’s condition was stable and she was recovering. Medical Superintendent D.K. Sharma said they had carried out a procedure to divert her stools as her private parts had suffered injuries and were badly damaged.
Protesters gave vent to their anger at the rising rapes. Students, women activists and members of the Aam Admi Party and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student’s wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, laid siege outside the Police headquarters in the heart of the capital from early morning, shouting slogans and waving banners.
The crowd demanded the resignation of Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar. Many protesters tried to break the barricades and enter the Police Headquarters. They were gently, but firmly pushed back by police, maybe taking a lesson from Friday’s incident when a senior police officer was suspended for slapping a protesting schoolgirl — an incident that attracted wide condemnation.
Police imposed prohibitory orders around India Gate, to prevent a repeat of the earlier incidents in the aftermath of the December16 gang-rape when protesters had overrun the area.
Gandhi condemned the rape, saying “action and not words are required to check incidents like this heinous rape”. BJP leader Sushma Swaraj demanded death penalty. “They reflect a mental sickness which has crept in society...a strong law is not sufficient, they need a shock treatment... They should be hanged to send a strong message to other people,” she said. IANS
