New Delhi: The spine-chilling incident of the paramedic student’s gang rape on Sunday night has sent shock waves in the country.
For about an hour, the chartered bus was driven through the busy south Delhi stretches and went unnoticed by the three Police Control Room vans stationed on the way. No one stopped the bus with tinted windows and drawn curtains. And all this while, a group of men raped the girl inside the bus.
While the driver and three other culprits have been arrested, police are on the look out for two more accomplices.
Admitted at the Safdurjung Hospital, the 23-year-old victim continues to battle for life in the ICU. She was travelling, along with her 28-year-old software engineer friend after watching a movie.
A senior doctor at the hospital told Gulf News, “This is the most grievous rape case handled by the hospital. She had to undergo an emergency surgery that lasted for three hours. There were extensive abdominal and intestinal injuries. These were so grievous that it showed she had been subjected to severe torture, which can even be life threatening.”
While the incident has shamed the nation, it has led young girls say that the city is unsafe for woman at any hour. Some discuss their moments of horror when predators almost got them.
Jasmeet, 19, recalls the trauma of a week back when she got off at the R K Puram Metro Station around 6pm. “I had just sat on a rickshaw, when three boys tucked at my clothes and made lewd remarks. I shouted for help, as they snatched my dupatta, but no one came to my rescue. I jumped off the rickshaw and boarded an autorickshaw and pleaded with the driver to rush me home.”
That day, the young girl resolved never to travel alone. “We move about in groups now even during daytime,” she said.
Rashmi, 22, shares the horrific incident of January last: “I was crossing the road to board a bus in Dwarka when midway a car braked and a man tried to pull me inside the vehicle. I bit his hand with all my strength and escaped. Trembling with fear, I rushed and managed to board the bus.
“Till today it surprises me that despite so many witnesses, no one in the bus cared to ask me if I was alright and needed any help.”
That people remain spectators was revealed in a study conducted by an NGO Jagori. The study stated, “In the year 2010, about 69 per cent men and 54 per cent women who saw unruly elements misbehaving with women, preferred not to intervene.”
The report uncovered another startling fact — 70 per cent women are harassed by the roadside, 50 per cent inside public transport and 42 per cent while waiting for the transport.
The National Crime Records Bureau data confirms that in 2011, more rapes happened in Delhi alone than all other metros put together. In Delhi 572 women were raped, compared to 239 in Mumbai, 96 in Bangalore, 76 in Chennai and 47 in Kolkata.
Even as facts of the savage behaviour of the rape accused are coming to light, the police has claimed that the attack was premeditated and youth in the bus wanted to have ‘fun’.
