New Delhi: Indian officials are promising a broad campaign to protect women on buses as they arrested a fifth person in connection with the rape and brutal beating of a woman on a bus in New Delhi.
Home Secretary R.K. Singh said on Friday that bus drivers would be required to display their identification prominently, buses would be forced to remove tinting from their windows and plain clothes police would be placed on buses to protect female passengers.
The 23-year-old victim was showing early signs of sepsis, a potentially deadly medical condition characterised by a whole-body inflammatory state caused by severe infection, doctors said.
“Infection is setting in. These are early signs of sepsis,” B.D. Hathani, medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, said.
“To fight the infection, we are administering antibiotics to the patient. We are also maintaining the highest levels of hygiene in her ward. I request members of the public to try and not visit the victim’s ward, so that its level of hygiene is maintained,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Friday said it is not “convinced” with the status report filed by the Delhi Police which did not mention the details of the police officials patrolling the area where the woman was gang-raped in a moving bus.
A division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, after going through the report, said: “We, in the earlier order, directed the Commissioner of Police to file a report giving details of police officials patrolling in the area and the action taken by police in this aspect.”
“On the above aspect, a report is filed. We have gone through the report and we are not convinced. None of the details of the police officials has been mentioned,” said the court expressing its displeasure at the police for not filing the detailed report.
The report is insufficient, it said.
On Friday, the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit admitted that she did not have the courage to meet the victim in hospital and also that she is unhappy with Delhi being labelled as India’s rape capital.
Dikshit also said that her “hands are tied” regarding law and order as it does not fall under the Delhi government.
Delhi has reported over 600 cases of rape this year, according to police.
“I frankly did not have the courage to see her, I only met her parents and doctors. It would not have been right to break down in front of her parents. The incident has touched the pinnacle of cruelty and insensitivity both by police and society,” Dikshit told NDTV news channel.
“This case is the most painful thing I have seen happening as chief minister or a citizen.”
On Delhi being labelled as “rape capital”, the chief minister said: “I do not like my city being described as rape capital but it is out in the open that it has become one. I have a daughter and daughter-in-law. I am concerned about all girls in the city.”
