The alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl inside a moving bus in Delhi national capital region (NCR) earlier this month has drawn ire of several political parties and leaders as they have condemned the horrific crime and called for strict action against the accused.
Congress called the incident that took place between Greater Noida and Delhi “shocking” and accused that the police from Uttar Pradesh and the national capital, both ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, “turned a deaf ear and slept on”.
“No patrolling, no checking…This incident not only exposes the hollow claims of women’s safety but also shows that criminals have no fear of the law,” the party wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.
A 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped inside a sleeper bus by the vehicle’s driver and conductor near Greater Noida’s near Pari Chowk on August 4, police said on Monday. Both the accused have been arrested. The incident came to light almost a month later.
Taking a jibe at the BJP, Congress added that law and order has “collapsed under ‘double engine’ governments”.
“Today, criminals are brazenly committing crimes, and the BJP government is busy with empty, pie-in-the-sky promises, with no concern for the safety of the people,” it added.
Aam Aadmi Party’s Saurabh Bharadwaj also criticized the Delhi government over the rape of the teen and other incidents of sexual harassment of minors in the national capital.
“A teenage girl left her home after a minor fight and got a lift in a bus. The driver and the conductor of the bus gang-raped her inside the moving bus,” Bharadwaj said referring to the incident in a video on X. He also talked about other such incidents in the national capital in the video that he captioned “CM Rekha Gupta’ Govt’s conduct regarding child r@pes in Delhi has been insensitive & disgusting”.
BJP MP Navneet Rana also condemned the gang-rape and said it was ‘disheartening” as a woman that such incidents still occur. She added that people who commit such crimes “should be hanged at a bus intersection”.
“There should be no lengthy trials, no delays, and no need for special fast-track courts; it should be a straightforward process, a hearing followed immediately by public execution. That is the only appropriate punishment…” she told news agency ANI while calling for strict action against the accused.
16-year-old was going to meet cousin in Noida, was gang-raped
The police said that the girl, a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri, left home after her mother had scolded her over studies and was going to meet her cousin who lives in Noida sector 63.
She told police that she got off at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida by mistake while it was raining heavily and got on the sleeper bus after the conductor allegedly told her that the bus was going towards Noida sector 63.
Once the bus started moving, the girl alleged that both the driver and conductor gang-raped her and threatened to kill her if she resisted. Later, they abandoned her at Delhi’s Kashmere Gate before fleeing, according to police.
The case is reminiscent of the horrific 2012 Delhi gang-rape that took place inside a moving bus and sparked national outrage.