 |
|
A member of the Rapid Action
Force (RAF) pulls a
barricade to close a road leading
to the India Gate in
New Delhi December 29, 2012. Reuters/Danish
Siddiqui
|
An
Indian woman whose gang rape in New Delhi triggered violent protests died of
her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, bringing a security lockdown
in Delhi and recognition from India's prime minister that social change is
needed.
Bracing for a new wave of protests, Indian authorities
closed 10 metro stations and banned vehicles from some main roads in the heart
of New Delhi, where demonstrators have converged since the attack to demand
improved women's rights. About 100 people staged a peaceful protest on Saturday
morning.
The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten,
raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown
to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for
specialist treatment.
The attack has sparked an intense national debate for
the first time about the treatment of women and attitudes towards sex crimes in
a country where most rapes go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the
wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists.
"We are very sad to report that the patient
passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (2045 GMT Friday). Her
family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her
side," Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in
a statement.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was
deeply saddened by the death and described the emotions associated with her
case as "perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an
India that genuinely desires change.
"It would be a true homage to her memory if we
are able to channelize these emotions and energies into a constructive course
of action," Singh said in a statement.
Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, said the
woman's death was a "shameful moment for me not just as a chief minister
but also as a citizen of this country".
The woman, who has not been identified, and a male
friend were returning home from the cinema by bus on the evening of December 16
when, media reports say, six men on the bus beat them with metal rods and
repeatedly raped the woman. media said a rod was used in the rape, causing
internal injuries. Both were thrown from the bus. The male friend survived the
attack.
The public outcry over the attack has caught the
government off-guard. It took a week for Singh to make a public statement on
the attack, infuriating many protesters who saw it as a sign of a government
insensitive to the plight of women.
The prime minister, a stiff 80-year-old technocrat
who speaks in a low monotone, has struggled to channel the popular outrage in
his public statements and convince critics that his eight-year-old government
would now take concrete steps to improve the safety of women.
Protesters, mostly young middle class students,
fought pitched battles with police around the capital last weekend. Police used
batons, water cannon and teargas to quell the protests, and sealed off the main
protest sites.
BODY TO BE RETURNED HOME
T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian high commissioner to
Singapore, told reporters hours after the woman's death that a chartered
aircraft would fly her body back to India on Saturday, along with members of
her family. The woman's body had earlier been put into a van at the hospital
and driven away.
Indian media had also accused the government of
sending her to Singapore to minimize any backlash in the event of her death but
Raghavan said it had been a medical decision intended to ensure she got the
best treatment.
"She was unconscious throughout," Raghavan
said of her time in Singapore. "She died because of the severe nature of
the injuries."
Some Indian medical experts had questioned the
decision to fly the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the
severity of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best
possible care in India.
On Friday, the Singapore hospital had said the woman's
condition had taken a turn for the worse and she had suffered "significant
brain injury". She had already undergone three abdominal operations before
arriving in Singapore.
The suspects in the rape - five men aged between 20
and 40, and a juvenile - were arrested within hours of the attack and are in
custody. Media reports say they are likely to be formally charged with murder
next week.
Many Indians have called for the death penalty for
those responsible.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told Times Now
television on Saturday the government was committed to ensuring "the
severest possible punishment to all the accused at the earliest".
"It will not go in vain. We will give maximum
punishment to the culprits. Not only to this, but in future also. This one
incident has given a greater lesson" Shinde said.
He said earlier the government was considering the
death penalty for rape in very rare cases. Murder carries the death penalty.
The case has received blanket coverage on cable
television news channels. Some Indian media have called the woman
"Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure".
Commentators and sociologists say the rape tapped into
a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak
governance and poor leadership.
Many protesters have complained that Singh's
government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2
billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that
India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide,
child marriage and slavery.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among
India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according
to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in
the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.REUTERS
No comments:
Post a Comment