Gang-rape victim abandoned

Friend says police, hospital staff were slow to help

The companion of the New Delhi gang-rape victim has spoken for the first time about the attack, describing how he had to carry her bleeding body into the police van himself because none of the officers wanted to touch her.

The 28-year-old man, who asked not to be named, said no one wanted to help them as they lay naked and bleeding on the road and that police waited two hours before finally taking them to hospital.

His friend was repeatedly raped and abused with an iron bar during their ordeal aboard a bus as it cruised around New Delhi’s streets.

She died in a Singapore hospital last weekend, 13 days after the attack.

The case has shocked India and provoked public outrage at a police and justice system that routinely fails victims of sexual assault.

The latest details will only increase pressure for reform.

In an interview with the Hindi television channel Zee News, the rape victim’s friend said the gang of men aboard the bus — which was fitted with curtains and tinted windows — had planned their crime. He and his 23-year-old friend did their best to fight off the attackers after being lured aboard.

“I beat up three of them but then the rest brought an iron rod and hit me. Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away,” said the man, who suffered a broken leg.

“From where we boarded the bus, they moved around for nearly two and a half hours. We were shouting, trying to make people hear us. But they switched off the lights.”

They took away their mobile phones and stripped them naked to try to remove any evidence, he added, before they were dumped on the road.

Auto-rickshaws, cars and bikes slowed as they passed, but no one stopped for 25 minutes.

“Nobody from the public helped us. People were probably afraid that if they helped us they would become a witness to the crime and be asked to come to police stations and courts,” he said.

Eventually, three police vans arrived, but officers argued among themselves about which police station was responsible, wasting more time as the pair lay naked on the road. It took two hours to get to hospital.

“My friend was bleeding profusely. But instead of taking us to a nearby hospital, they took us to a faraway hospital,” he said.

At the hospital, staff was reluctant to help and the man said he was forced to borrow a mobile phone from a stranger. Doctors did not begin treatment until his relations arrived, he added.

“Even at the hospital we were made to wait and I had to literally beg for clothes,” he said.

“I cannot tell you what I feel when I think of it. I shiver in pain,” he said in a second interview with a news agency Friday in which he explained the pair only took the bus because they were running late.

Five men have been charged with rape, murder and other offences. They are due to be appointed lawyers during a court hearing Saturday.

Police have asked for a medical test to determine the age of a sixth suspect, who is thought to be 17. The man’s interview is certain to turn the spotlight on to New Delhi’s emergency services.

Protesters have already demanded tougher laws to punish rapists and an end to a culture where many rapes go unreported and where police officers frequently fail to pursue cases, often placing blame on the victim.

As part of its response, India has already announced plans to recruit more female police officers in its capital. Sushil Kumar Shinde, the home minister, said New Delhi’s 166 police stations would have policewomen available around the clock.