Rape victim stable, conscious

Five-year-old victim was left for dead; alleged rapist arrested; Delhiites come out in protest

As the extent of the bestiality and horror visited upon a five-year-old girl who was raped and mutilated by a 24-year-old man, before he left her for dead, became public, Delhi came out in protest.

The victim was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where doctors said she was conscious and her condition was stable. They, however, added she would need extended surgery.

Manoj, the alleged rapist, was arrested from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, and brought here in transit remand. He has told the police he locked up the girl and fled, thinking she was dead. The girl was locked up for 40 hours in a tiny room, where she was eventually found crying and in a weak condition.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Delhi, Prabhakar, said, “Manoj left Delhi on April 15 at 8:30 pm by Swatantrata Senani Express and reached the house of his in-laws in Bihar on April 17, from where he was arrested on Friday….Manoj has two brothers and four sisters, who live in Bihar. He had come to Delhi with his father 15 years ago, and had been living here since then….His father runs a juice shop in the Old Seelampur area in east Delhi, while Manoj was employed as a casual worker in a garment factory.” The girl was abducted on April 15 and kept hostage for two days, without food and water, in a room in which the attacker lived. The room was on the ground floor of a building in east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar area. The victim’s family stayed in the same building, the police said.

The girl, who was repeatedly raped, was finally rescued when a neighbour heard her screams and informed her family, who broke the door of the room in which she had been assaulted and held hostage.

This incident led to widespread protests by political parties, as well as their student wings. The Students’ Federation of India and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, student wings of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), respectively, led protests outside the Delhi Police headquarters and the residence of the home minister. The Aam Aadmi Party also joined the protests. Many said the protestors were manhandled.

With Delhi going to polls next year, political parties were quick to jump into the fray. The Delhi unit of the BJP started a protest demonstration from the Talkatora Stadium. The Congress again demanded the trifurcation of home functions, along the lines of the division of powers of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

In an uncharacteristically sharp interjection, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said she wanted action, not words. Sushma Swaraj, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said the rapist should get a death penalty.

Amid all this, people placed soft toys along the AIIMS corridors, as the gurney bearing the five-year-old gild was wheeled through those. Unaware she wasn’t in a state to eat, many brought food for the girl. Prayer sessions were held in many cities across the country.