Post date: Dec 17, 2012 3:46:57 PM
A 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped in New Delhi in a moving bus and was later thrown out of the moving vehicle in a semi-naked condition.
NEW DELHI, INDIA (DECEMBER 17, 2012) (ANI) - A 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped in New Delhi in a moving bus on Sunday night (December 16) and was later thrown out of the moving vehicle in a semi-naked condition.
The victim along with a male friend had boarded a private bus in South Delhi to go to Palam, where she lives and the boy was escorting her home.Interacting with the reporter, the boy's uncle, D. K. Mishra said on Monday (December 17) that around five to seven bus crew were already present in the bus and they started misbehaving with the girl a few minutes after she boarded the bus.
There were no other passengers in the bus.
The victim's friend tried to prevent the men from molesting her, but the men thrashed him and raped the girl.
"My nephew and his friend boarded a white colour luxury bus. Around 5-7 bus staff members were already present in the bus. After 10 minutes, those men started misbehaving with the girl, to which the boy objected. The men brutally beat the boy with iron rods and the girl was gang-raped in the cabin of the bus. After beating the girl and the boy, they threw them out of the bus," said Mishra in New Delhi.
Delhi State Chief, Sheila Dikshit said that stringent action will be taken against the culprits, and the license of the private bus operator has been cancelled.
"It is a very tragic and shocking incident that has happened. It has occurred in a white line bus, which is used by the commuters for travelling. The transport department has informed me that the license of that bus has been cancelled with immediate effect. Other than this, stringent actions required will be taken not just in this incident but precautionary measures will also be taken to avert such incidents from reoccurring in the future," said Dikshit.
According to media reports, the police said it was not clear yet whether the five assailants were passengers or bus staff. No arrests have been made so far; the police have seized two buses.
A First Information Report (FIR) has been lodged at the police station and four suspects have been detained.
Federal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lashed out at the provincial government over the deteriorating law and order situation in the national capital.
"Such incidents are happening continuously across Delhi and neither the Home (Interior) Ministry nor the police are taking those incidents seriously. Another such incident will happen after four days, which will push this matter into cold storage. The law and order situation and the security of people living inDelhi are being handled in a careless manner by the provincial government," said BJP spokespersonMukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
However, the Chairman of National Commission for Women, Mamta Sharma held the police responsible for their lacklustre approach as they probe they case.
"Looking at this incident it seems that the goons are left scot-free. First they brutally beat up the boy with iron rods and then they gang-raped the girl. So, I feel that the police should have been active and should have arrested the culprits; instead they are searching inside the bus. I feel that somewhere the carelessness of police is responsible for the incident," said Sharma.
Indian women face a multitude of threats, from illegal abortions of female foetuses due to a preference for sons, to the murders of brides by in-laws for want of more dowry, child marriage and human trafficking.
One women is raped every 20 minutes in India, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which reported 24,206 rapes in 2011 - an almost 10 percent rise over the previous year.
But gender rights activists say even those figures are a gross under-exaggeration, with most victims unwilling to report the crime out of fear it will bring dishonour on their families.
Gender abuses are more common across India's conservative northern belt - which includes Haryana,Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Bihar - largely due a deep-rooted mindset that women are inferior and must be restricted to the role of homemakers.
Powerful community groups of elderly men, known as "Khap Panchayat", which unofficially govern innorth India's Haryana's state, have responded to the recent rapes by demanding that the age of marriage be lowered to 16 years from 18, saying it would stop boys and girls "straying" and prevent rapes.