External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said yesterday that a new rape outrage showed that “something terrible” was happening to society as he extended an olive branch to demonstrators.
Protests have been taking place across New Delhi since last week when it emerged that a five-year-old girl had been repeatedly raped over the course of nearly two days after being abducted from her home in a working class suburb.
The attack has reignited anger over the shocking levels of sexual violence in India, which flared up in December after the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in the capital.
In an interview with the NDTV network, Khurshid said that authorities needed to listen to what the protesters had to say rather than simply confront them.
“We need to take protests on board as part of our democratic commitment. We can’t be upset that somebody is protesting... We need to be sensitive to people’s anger,” said Khurshid, who was previously the country’s law minister.
“There’s something terrible happening in our society. It needs to be analysed, it needs to be studied, it needs to be uncovered.”
Khurshid’s comments followed a weekend speech by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in which he called for a collective effort to “root out this sort of depravity from our society.”
The five-year-old victim is recovering in a hospital after undergoing surgery for severe internal injuries suffered during her ordeal.
Two men have been arrested on suspicion of rape and kidnap.
“The girl is recovering as expected. Her fever has come down,” said D K Sharma, medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“She is active and taking adequate liquids and semi-solid food. She has had good breakfast,” he said adding that her “colostomy is functioning normally.”
It could take up to two weeks for the girl to be discharged, the doctor said, adding that they were trying their best to ensure that she is able to lead a normal life.
Meanwhile, the second accused in the case, Pradeep, was sent to four days of police custody by a Delhi court.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Garg asked the Tihar Jail authorities to present the main accused Manoj Kumar before the court today as police wanted to bring him face to face with Pradeep.
Pradeep was arrested on Monday from Bihar’s Lakhisarai district where he was hiding at his uncle’s house.
Manoj was arrested on Saturday from his in-laws’ house in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district.
Protests continued in the national capital, as activists demanded the resignation of Delhi’s Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar and sought better safety for women.
Demonstrations were staged outside the police headquarters in central Delhi, AIIMS in south Delhi and at Jantar Mantar, where a group of people has been holding vigil since the December 16, 2012 gang-rape of the 23-year-old woman on a bus.
Meanwhile, more cases of sexual attacks were reported from other parts of the country.
In Odisha, a 50-year-old man was arrested for raping a Dalit woman, police said.
The incident took place on Sunday in a village near Nandapur town of Koraput district, , but came to light after the woman lodged a complaint with the police on Monday night, a police officer said.
In Uttar Pradesh, at least four minors were allegedly raped in a single day, police said.
Senior police officers admitted cases of rape were continuing unabated in the state.
“Sadly, rape cases are happening and the society must take stock of the direction we all are heading in,” a senior police official said.
He added that the police had stepped up patrolling during night to check such crimes.