M A I N   N E W S

Sonia meets Jind gangrape victim’s kin, promises action
Raps khaps’ idea of lowering marriage age to curb rape
Geetanjali Gayatri/TNS

Jind, October 9
Congress president Sonia Gandhi today offered condolences and a hug to the family of a teenage girl who killed herself in Jind after she was allegedly gang-raped. The Congress chief pitched for “stringent action” against the perpetrators of the “horrific” crime, but rejected the khaps’ demand to reduce the marriageable age of girls to 16.

The 16-year-old Dalit gang-rape victim had on Saturday doused herself with kerosene and in her dying statement to a Magistrate said she took the extreme step after her rape in Sacha Khera village of this district.

Sonia arrived at the Dalit girl’s one-room house at 10 am with Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Union Minister Selja, a prominent Dalit face of the state at the Centre, in tow. She interacted with the victim’s parents, siblings, paternal uncles and grandmother behind closed doors as the Special Protection Group (SPG) stood guard. The road leading to their house was virtually taken over by the Haryana Police.

Party general secretary in-charge BK Hariprasad and Dalit leaders -- Pradesh Congress Committee president Phool Chand Mullana and Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal -- too joined in.

The family of very humble means sat huddled together on a borrowed charpoy while the guests sat on plastic chairs. Mattresses and a durrie spread out in the small compound of the house accommodated the others. The victim’s uncles narrated the incident and “appreciated” the Haryana Government’s prompt action in arresting the accused.

The girl’s mother simply asked Sonia to ensure that “justice is as speedy as the arrests and that the accused are hanged for this crime”. “On meeting her (Sonia), I broke down into tears. She hugged me and said I alone had not lost my daughter… she was her child too,” the mother said.

In the 10 minutes that Sonia spent with the family, she asked the victim’s six siblings, four girls and two boys, if they went to school. Replying in the affirmative, the parents said the children received a stipend under a Haryana Government scheme and insisted that they only wanted the culprits punished. After meeting the family, Sonia strongly condemned the crime and backed “stringent action against the guilty”. Much to the relief of the Haryana Government, especially the police, Sonia said, “I know incidents of rape are on the rise, but that is not happening in Haryana alone.”

In response to a query on the recent khap demand to lower marriageable age to check rapes, Gandhi, reacting sharply, said, “We have a democratic system and the law of the land is in the hands of the judiciary and no one else.”

Some members of the Balmiki community waited for Sonia at the chaupal, hoping she would make an unscheduled stop, but that didn’t happen. Once her carcade left, an “avalanche” of people came out of forced “hiding” thrust upon them by the security to catch a glimpse of leaders who stayed back after the “guests” had departed.

Sonia’s visit is being seen in Congress circles as a “damage-control exercise” to salvage the situation for the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government under fire from the Opposition for “complete collapse of law and order and the inability to curb crime”.

Haryana PWD Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, who was present and oversaw arrangements for the visit, told the media that the Congress president’s visit should be views in “humanitarian” light and motives should not be attributed to it. The visit aimed at providing succor to the aggrieved family, he said.

However, the Opposition Bharatiya Janta Party and the Indian National Lok Dal termed it a “failed visit”, claiming that Sonia had neither pulled up the government nor issued any directions. Neither Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda nor his Cabinet colleagues or top administrative and police officers have visited any of the families of the 13 rape victims. Identical is the case with the national Opposition parties.