Cong chief to meet teen survivor today
JAIPUR: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will fly to Rajasthan on Wednesday to meet the 19-yearold Dalit woman, who was allegedly gang-raped in Alwar on April 26.
He will meet her before flying to Punjab for campaigning ahead of the last phase of the national polls on Sunday, according to Congress functionaries aware of Gandhi’s programme.
Gandhi is visiting the woman as Rajasthan’s Congress government has drawn flak over its handling of the case. The Rajasthan police allegedly delayed the filing of a First Information Report (FIR) in the case.
An FIR was filed only after a purported video of the sexual assault began circulating on social media.
Five men had raped the woman after assaulting her husband. They also allegedly filmed the rape.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the rape at an election rally on Sunday and questioned why Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati had not withdrawn support from the Congress government in Rajasthan over it. Modi accused the Rajasthan government of suppressing the case until the fifth phase of national polling was over on May 6.
The Rajasthan government removed Alwar’s police superintendent, Rajeev Pachar, and suspended station house officer, Sardar Singh, over the alleged inaction in the case. The police have arrested the five accused for the gang rape and another person for circulating the video of the sexual assault.
Chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Monday hit out at Modi for politicising the case and insisted that his government has done all that it could and will not spare any guilty.
BJP’S Rajya Sabha member Kirodi Lal Meena has been holding protests and demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the case.
On Tuesday, his supporters scuffled with the police as they were trying to a block railway track in Dausa.
Meena was later detained for allegedly leading the rioters. GUWAHATI: Five Rohingya Muslims, including a woman, who were recently granted bail after serving months in jail in Manipur were detained again by Assam police in Guwahati on Tuesday, police said. At least two of them were on their way to Delhi to register as refugees with the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.
According to Himanta Das, superintendent of police, Government Railway Police, Assam, the group was apprehended by the Railway Protection Force on Tuesday morning from the Guwahati Railway station.
Zuber (21) said he recently came out on bail earlier in May after he was arrested by the Manipur police from the Myanmar border town of Moreh in May 2018. “I was going to Delhi to collect UN card (UNHCR refugee cards),” he said.
Assam police, meanwhile, is in a quandary on if they should arrest the group again under the Foreigners Act. “As foreign nationals they should not have been granted bail in the first place. But we are examining the legality and will decide accordingly,” said Das.