Delhi gang-rape: Sonia Gandhi writes to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde

December 19, 2012
sonia

New Delhi, December 19: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has written strong letters to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, demanding safety for women and strict punishment for the men who gang-raped a medical student in a moving bus in Delhi on Sunday. (Read letters)

Mrs Gandhi also paid a visit to the hospital, where she met the 23-year-old victim, who is on a ventilator after multiple surgeries.

In her letter to Mrs Dikshit, the Congress leader wrote, "I would urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to undertake community action, to strengthen law and order, and to step up vigilance to protect women. There is urgent need to demonstrate our sincerity and determination. You have my support and the support of our party organizations in whatever efforts you need to curb this menace."

Mrs Gandhi's letter to Home Minister Shinde read, "This monstrous crime deserves not only universal condemnation but also the Government's most urgent attention.... I hope you initiate immediate action to remedy the situation."

Mrs Gandhi had earlier spoken to both the Delhi Chief Minister and the Home Minister on the phone. This comes after angry opposition leaders today asked the government to explain what it's doing to protect women in an increasingly unsafe capital. Mr Shinde said that he will ask for the case to be fast-tracked with daily court hearings. He said a special committee has been set up in his ministry to come up with guidelines to offer better protection for women. More policemen will patrol the roads at night, he said.

The Delhi Chief Minister has also urged the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court to open five special fast track courts for cases of rape and assault against women.

Meanwhile, the four of the six accused in the case have been arrested. The prime accused, Ram Singh, who was the driver of the chartered bus on which the gang-rape took place on Sunday, has been sent to five-day police custody. The other three arrested, including Ram Singh's brother Mukesh, will be presented in court on Wednesday.

The 23-year-old medical student who was gang-raped and hit with an iron rod for nearly 45 minutes on a Delhi bus is in critical condition, say her doctors. Her intestines are very badly ruptured, but she cannot undergo any more surgeries till she stabilises, say the doctors, adding that the next 72 hours will be crucial. Her male friend, who tried to intervene on the bus and was beaten up, has been discharged.

The incident took place on Sunday night when the 23-year-old medical student and her male friend boarded a bus for Dwarka from Munirka in south Delhi after watching a movie at a mall in Saket. A group of men who were on the bus began harassing her, asking why she was out late with a man. When her friend tried to intervene, he was gagged and then hit mercilessly with an iron rod. Five men then hit the woman with the same rod and gang-raped her while the driver kept the bus moving. At about 11 pm, the couple was thrown semi-naked onto the road.

A passer-by phoned the police which then collected the couple and moved the pair to hospital.


Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
January 12,2020

Mumbai, Jan 12: Thousands of citizens on Sunday congregated in Mumbai's suburban Jogeshwari to oppose the new citizenship law, the proposed NRC and NPR.

They also condemned last Sunday's violence on the JNU campus in Delhi, where masked men ran riot and attacked students. Leftist organisations had claimed RSS-affiliated ABVP's role in the attack, a charge denied by the students' body.

Former Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) general secretary Fahad Ahmed told PTI that they assembled under the aegis of 'Hum Bharat Ke Log' in Millat Nagar area.

"Prime minister Narendra Modi should call 56 students from across the country to debate on the CAA, NRC and NPR," Ahmed said in an apparent jibe at Modi's "56 inch chest" remark, which the latter had made ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

"Why the PM is not talking to us? Why is he not communicating? Even the Britishers used to talk to Indians whom they ruled, but our PM is not talking to poor people," he alleged.

Bollywood actor Sushasht Singh also spoke on the occasion.

"We are people of this country and such acts (CAA) are tarnishing the image of our country," he said.

At the gathering, people waved banners with slogans like "I Am From Gujarat, My Documents Burned in 2002", "No CAA, Boycott NRC, Stop Dividing India, Don't Divide us", "Save Constitution", written on them.

A large number of police personnel were present at the venue.

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was notified on January 10, grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim minorities migrated to India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh till December 31, 2014, following persecution over their faith.

Massive protests were witnessed against the CAA, mainly by the student community, since its passage by Parliament in December last year.

Opposition parties have been dubbing the CAA an "anti-Muslim" legislation, a charge being debunked by the government.

The Congress and other parties like the TMC have also opposed the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).

Union home minister Amit Shah has said that the government won't rest until persecuted refugees are granted Indian citizenship.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
May 19,2020

Lucknow, May 19: The administration of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) has ordered a probe into the cardiac procedure conducted on a corona positive patient in the hospital.

The patient underwent a cardiac procedure without being tested for corona before the surgery. He later tested positive for COVID-19, leading to panic among the staff and other patients.

The medical staff that came in contact with the patient were quarantined on Monday while the area was sanitized.

As per orders from the State Medical Education Department, even in emergency cases, patients are to be screened for Covid-19 before procedures are done.

According to the SGPGI administration, the incident took place late on Sunday night.

In an official statement, director, Prof R.K. Dhiman said, "The 63-year-old patient was a case of complete cardiac blockage and needed an urgent temporary pacemaker. The patient was admitted to the holding area of the institute and later shifted to the MICU for permanent pace making."

He said that when the patient's corona status was found to be positive on the Hospital Information System, she was shifted to the Rajdhani COVID Hospital.

The Director said, "Though the involved areas have been sanitized and healthcare workers were quarantined as per protocol, a probe has been ordered to investigate the lapses."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 12,2020

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Centre on Wednesday said the NRC data in Assam is safe even though some technical issues were visible and that will be resolved soon.

The Union Home Ministry clarification came in view of reports that data of the final list of the National Register of Citizens has been made offline from its official website.

"The NRC data is safe. Some technical issues are in visibility on cloud. These are being resolved soon," a home ministry spokesperson said.

The data was not available for a couple of days and it created panic in the public, mostly among the people excluded from the list as the rejection certificates were yet to be issued.

NRC State Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma accepted that the data has been made offline, but refuted the allegation of any "malafide" intent in it.

The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by IT firm Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the previous coordinator.

So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro, Sarma said.

He said the state coordination committee had decided to do necessary formalities in its meeting on January 30 and wrote to the Wipro during the first week of February.

"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for public. We hope people will be able to access it in the next 2-3 days," Sarma said.

The complete detail of exclusion and inclusion of bonafide Indian citizens in the NRC was uploaded on its official website http://www.nrcassam.nic.in after the final list was published on August 31, 2019.

The final NRC was published by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

After the earlier NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela relinquished the charge on November 11 following his transfer to home state Madhya Pradesh on a direction from the Supreme Court, Sarma was appointed in his place on November 9.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.