Wake up the police - Delhi NCR records 5 rapes in 48 hours
The National Capital Region has for years been notorious for its crimes against women. Every day we hear more and more attacks taking place in Delhi and its surrounding suburbs with every case sounding more horrific than the previous.
The NCR, in the past 48 hours, has witnessed five cases of rape.
In the early hours of Tuesday, on June 20, a 35-year-old woman has alleged that she was abducted from Gurgaon and gang-raped for several hours by three men, before being thrown out in Greater Noida, near a hospital.
According to reports, the survivor, who is believed to be a resident of Bharatpur, Rajasthan, had been walking near her residence when she was abducted from the Sohna area in Gurgaon at 8.45pm in a Maruti Suzuki Swift, and was thrown out of the vehicle in Greater Noida at around 4am. A woman passerby spotted her crying in front of Yatharth Hospital, after which she informed the police.
Noida police, after taking her in for medical examination and recording her statements, informed their counterparts in Gurgaon. "Some beer bottles were also found from the spot which indicates that the accused persons were inebriated at the time," said a senior Greater Noida Police officer.
"We have taken the details from SSP Gautambudh Nagar, Love Kumar. A team of the Gautambudh Nagar police is arriving in Gurgaon to examine the sequence of the crime. We are examining whether they lodged a zero FIR in this regard. We are assisting Noida police and are investigating the matter," said Sandeep Khirwar, the Gurgaon Police commissioner.
The police teams are also reportedly checking CCTV footage from major roads in the NCR region.
Case after case, the erroneous title “rape capital” continues to be justified by the rising incidents of sexual violence in the NCR.
Gurgaon is perhaps the most notorious in the region when it comes to cases of sexual assault and sexual violence. A look at the list of recent reports is enough to make one understand why.
On Sunday, June 18, an auto driver in Gurgaon raped a seven-year-old girl. The accused was arrested on June 19 from the Dundahera village after a man-hunt, the same place where he had committed the crime.
A woman employee of a private insurance company has alleged that she was raped by her branch manager. In her complaint, she has said that the branch manager, Sunil, used to ask her to accompany him in official meetings to other cities where he raped her on many occasions and threatened to kill her if she revealed the incident to anyone. She further alleged that he also threatened her brother over phone when he came to know about the rape. The accused has been reported to be absconding as of now.
According to a Times of India report, a 25-year-old woman, who has lodged a complaint with Masuri police station, alleged that she was forcibly pulled inside a Maruti Omni car and raped by a driver around 12.30pm on Monday, June 19. The survivor who is a resident of Masuri, Ghaziabad, was returning home after work when a Maruti Omni started following her.
According to her statement, the driver stopped and asked her to sit in the car, but when she resisted, he pulled her inside and raped her. The accused, identified as Pintu Yadav, a resident of Raghunathpur, is at large.
Just before the international Yoga Day, a yoga trainer in Faridabad was abducted and raped at gunpoint by two men from her neighbourhood. The police have started investigations, but at present both the accused are absconding.
Earlier this month, the nation was horror-struck after reading about another incident from Gurgaon. A 19-year-old woman was gang raped in an auto rickshaw by three men, who also killed her child. The eight-month-old infant was killed after an irate rapist threw her on the main road, where her head hit the concrete median divider.
Recently, the Delhi Police proudly claimed a drop in the crime rate, especially in cases related to sexual assault and rape. According to figures released by Delhi Police, 836 cases of rape have been reported till May 31, 2017, as compared with 924 in the same period last year. Molestation cases too, they claim, have gone down from 1,841 to 1,412.
But is this number worth anything when we look at the kind of crimes that have been cropping up in Delhi and its peripheral regions?
A woman was raped across the national capital region for eight hours in a moving vehicle. The vehicle crossed three states and not at one point was it stopped by law enforcement officials. It is incredulous that no one managed to notice this gross incident given the several police check-posts one must cross. A report in the Hindustan Times from May elaborates on the lack of securities in these interstate borders.
Post the auto rickshaw gang rape in Gurgaon, the National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the DGP of Haryana and the police commissioner of Gurgaon, asking them about the steps being taken for the safety of women. In its notice, the NHRC has observed that the incident makes it clear that "night patrolling on the road by the police was not being done".
In an unrelated incident, two Noida policemen stationed at a Police Control Room van were found sleeping during the night. While this was nowhere near the area where the incident took place, it does highlight the kind of vigilance and protection the police offer.
Perhaps it is time the authorities wake up from their nap and look at the clear lack of law and order in their backyard.