Patna: Despite the continuing public outcry over the heinous incident of Delhi gang-rape shaming the entire nation, the incidents of rape continue unabated in Bihar, forcing the harried villagers to huddle together and chart out their own laws for the “safety” of the girls.
In the past 24 hours, as many as four incidents of rapes have been reported from across the state even as the government headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar has declared to put all the pending rape cases on the fast track for quicker punishment to the accused persons.
The first incident was reported from North Bihar’s Gopalganj district where a 10-year-old girl was dragged from a running train and raped several times by a local man who is absconding.
Police said the victim along with her younger sister had boarded a local train at Thave railway station on Thursday night to see her ailing mother admitted to a hospital in neighbouring Siwan district. However, as the train chugged off the station, a youth forcibly dragged the girl from the train and took her to a lonely place where she was raped many times.
The local Government Railway Police officer-in-charge SN Singh said the police had registered a case against a local youth and were conducting raids on the possible hideouts to nab the accused.
Another the shocking incident took place in eastern Bihar’s Bhagalpur district where a Grade eight student was poisoned to death before being raped at gun-point by a local youth. Police said the accused had made the girl swallow sulphas tablets used to kill insects. She died in the course of treatment.
The victim’s family told the police that they got suspicious when they saw him stealthily walking out of the girl’s room and nabbed him. When they went inside, they saw the victim lying unconscious and admitted her to a local hospital but she eventually died. The police have arrested the youth and sent him to jail.
Another incident was rape has been reported from eastern Bihar’s Katihar district where a minor girl was raped by a local youth while she had gone outside to attend Nature’s call. Hearing her cries, the local villagers rushed to the spot and nabbed the accused who was brutally assaulted by the crowd before being handed over to the police.
In central Bihar’s Nalanda district some four men made unsuccessful bids to gang-rape a handicapped woman. She, however, was lucky to save herself as the local villagers had rushed to spot on time after hearing her screams.
All these incidents come close on the heels of a shocking incident in western Bihar’s Bhojpur district on Thursday noon where a woman jumped from a Delhi-bound running express train to escape rape bids by some army troopers who were travelling on the same train. The woman with multiple injuries has been admitted to the local Patna Medical College and Hospital where her mental condition is said to be unstable.
The continuing incidents of rapes have caused such a panic among the local villagers that they have started charting out their own laws putting a blanket ban on use of “sexy” clothes for girls to check rape cases. Since the time Delhi rape victim succumbed to her injuries in a Singapore hospital, as many as six village panchayats and government schools have put a blanket ban on use of jeans pants, skirts and also mobile phones for girls, holding them responsible for such social perversions.
