Rape victim’s father wants name revealed

Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration against the gang-rape of a woman in New Delhi yesterday.

Reuters/New Delhi

The father of a student whose brutal rape provoked a global outcry said he wanted her name made public so she could be an inspiration to victims of sexual assault, a call that was quickly taken up by social media users and may pressure authorities to allow her identity to be revealed.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died on December 28 in a Singapore hospital, two weeks after a gang-rape on a moving bus in New Delhi that ignited protests across India and neighbouring countries and government promises of tougher punishments.

“We want the world to know her real name,” the woman’s father told Britain’s Sunday People newspaper.

“My daughter didn’t do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself,” he added. “I am proud of her. Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived these attacks. They will find strength from my daughter.”

The father’s interview sparked widespread interest on social networking sites. Her name was the top trending topic among Indian Twitter users with many, including journalists and Bollywood actors, praising his decision to reveal her name.

Mainstream media did not identify her, however, and she was still being referred to as “Amanat”, an Urdu word meaning “treasure”, by some TV channels.

A spokesman for Delhi police declined to comment when asked if the authorities would take action against social networks or publications carrying the student’s name.

There have been growing calls in India to name the victim. Federal minister Shashi Tharoor last week questioned the merit of keeping her anonymous, and suggested naming new anti-rape law after her, a proposal her father supported.

Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims’ privacy and keep them from the media glare in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.

The father later told Reuters he had no objections to the media using his daughter’s name, but did not elaborate.

Five men have been charged with gang-rape and murder and will appear in a New Delhi court today to hear the charges.

Rajiv Mohan, a prosecutor in the case, said Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital gave the cause of death as “septicaemia from multi-organ failure due to multiple organ injuries.”

Mohan said the prosecution had matched DNA from her blood to blood found on the clothes of the accused, and on hers, which one of the men had allegedly tried to burn to destroy evidence.

“The blood stain appearing on the burnt cloth has been tallied with the blood sample of the victim,” Mohan told reporters on Saturday.

The British paper named the father and his daughter, saying that the father had given permission, but added that it would not publish a photo of her at the family’s request. Reuters has opted not to identify the victim.

Mohan told Reuters the police and prosecution still had no intention of revealing her identity. The spokesman for Delhi police could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Even if family members have given their permission to disclose the victim’s identity for a greater cause, we can’t disclose her identity,” Mohan said, citing section 228a of the Indian Penal Code.

Legal experts consulted by Reuters said a situation could arise where Indian media, wary of legal cases, chose not name her while foreign publications do.

Citing the same law, Delhi police have started legal proceedings against TV network Zee News after it ran an interview with a friend of the victim who was with her during the attack.

He accused the police of responding slowly and failing to cover the victim and himself after they were thrown from the bus without clothes and bleeding.

“The police is not taking any chances and wants to be in a controlling situation, scaring everybody off by filing (legal complaints)” said senior Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde, who predicted such complaints were unlikely to lead to prosecution.

Despite huge public pressure to move quickly, it might take several weeks to formally begin the trial against the five men, public prosecutor Mohan said. He said the case could be concluded within four to five months.

A juvenile also accused of the assault will be tried separately. Mohan said police had recovered items stolen from the victim and her friend during the attack.

The protests and fierce public debate that followed the December 16 rape have revealed fissures between conservatives who blame a wave of sex crimes on a loss of traditional values and a growing middle class used to women playing a larger role in public life.

The head of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh linked to the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, on Friday stoked debate by saying sex crimes and gang-rapes mainly happened in urban India - a position not supported by facts.

“You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes. They are prevalent in some urban belts,” said Mohan Bhagwat.

While per capita rape statistics are lower than in many nations, one case is reported in India every 20 minutes.

A global poll of experts last year by TrustLaw, a legal news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation, showed India to be the worst place among G20 countries to be a woman.

Activists say most sex crimes in India go unreported, and official data show that almost all go unpunished. Reported rape cases rose nearly 17% between 2007 and 2011.

Cops suspended after rape, murder

Four policemen were suspended and an officer was shunted out after a 22-year-old missing woman was founded gang-raped and murdered in Noida, police said yesterday. The victim’s family identified the main suspect as Udaivir Singh Yadav, a resident of Bahlolpur. They said he had not been arrested although he used to torment the victim for a long time. The mother of the dead woman, who belonged to a poor family, accused the rapists of killing her daughter to destroy evidence that could be used against them. The gory incident led to angry street protests. Meanwhile in Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday suspended Yogesh Attrey from the party following charges of rape against him. Attrey, 40, a member of the party’s Delhi Pradesh working committee was arrested on Friday from Rohini in north Delhi for allegedly raping a woman. Attrey had contested Delhi assembly polls in 2008 from Mangolpuri constituency on a BJP ticket.

SC wants deterrent punishment for offenders

IANS/New Delhi

Lending its voice to the countrywide demand for strong laws to ensure the safety and security of women, the Supreme Court called for a revamp of the system to provide for stringent punishment in cases of crimes against women.

“A complete overhaul of the system is a must in the form of deterrent punishment for the offenders so that we can effectively deal with the problem,” Justices P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi said in a recent judgment.

“In spite of stringent legislation in order to curb the deteriorating condition of women across the country, cases of bride burning, cruelty, suicide, sexual harassment, rape, suicide by married women, etc; have increased,” Sathasivam said.

The court made the observation while upholding the conviction of Ashabai and Kavita, sisters-in-law of Vandana Raghunath Tayade, who was burnt to death in Maharashtra in 2003 for her inability to conceive.

“In view of clinching evidence led in by the prosecution, there cannot be any leniency in favour of the appellants, who are sisters-in-law of the deceased and at whose instance the deceased was burnt at the hands of her mother-in-law,” the court said, dismissing the appeals.

Addressing the contention that Vandana had made four dying declarations which were inconsistent and could not be relied upon, the court said: “When the (trial) court is satisfied that the dying declaration is voluntary, not tainted by tutoring or animosity, and is not a product of the imagination of the declarant, in that event there is no impediment in convicting the accused on the basis of such dying declaration.”

“When there are multiple dying declarations, each dying declaration has to be separately assessed and evaluated on its own merit as to its evidentiary value and one cannot be rejected because of certain variation in the other,” the judges said, offering a precedent for cases in which there is more than one dying declaration.