Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Chilling details of 2 rapes in India
Implicated politician questioned by CBI
NEW DELHI: Mounting outrage over two rapes, one in the disputed region of Kashmir and another allegedly involving a lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, gripped India yesterday, with government ministers struggling to dampen political fires.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi held a candlelit vigil at India Gate in New Delhi, the same site where thousands of people demonstrated in 2012 against a brutal gang-rape in the capital.
“Like millions of Indians, my heart hurts tonight,” Gandhi wrote on Twitter after addressing an estimated 5 000 people at Thursday’s midnight vigil. “India simply cannot continue to treat its women the way it does.”
Modi has condemned the rapes, which have drawn conflicted responses among the lower ranks of his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Horrifying details of the alleged gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl, Asifa, in a Hindu-dominated area of Jammu and Kashmir state in January, emerged this week from a police charge sheet. The BJP shares power in the state, where party members joined a rally to show support for eight Hindu men accused of the crime, including a former bureaucrat and four police officers.
“Yet again we’ve failed as a society,” Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar said in a Twitter message.
“(I) can’t think straight as more chilling details on little Asifa’s case emerge. Her innocent face refuses to leave me. Justice must be served, hard and fast!”
Amid fears the case could escalate unrest in a region where security forces are battling separatist militants, separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq vowed to launch an agitation if any attempt was made to shield culprits or sabotage investigations.
“It is a criminal act and perpetrators of the crime should be punished,” he added.
Thousands of Kashmiris joined street protests in Srinagar this week following the death of four protesters in a clash with security forces.
In the crime-ridden northern state of Uttar Pradesh, federal police yesterday began questioning a BJP member of the state legislature who is accused of raping a teenager in June.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the case this week after the state’s police were heavily criticised for not acting sooner on the victim’s complaint.
A CBI spokesperson said the lawmaker, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, was being questioned yesterday, but had not been arrested. Sengar’s lawyer said his client was innocent and the case was a conspiracy to harm his political career.
Ministers have insisted justice would be done no matter who committed the crime, while defending the government’s record on fighting violence against women. – Reuters/ African News Agency (ANA)