On 19 April 2013, a five-year old girl was abducted and brutally raped in Delhi, by her neighbor and another man for 48 hours. She had gone out to play with her friends when one of the men who lived in the same building kidnapped her and eventually left her unconscious and bleeding after trying to strangle her. Foreign objects like a candle and a 200 ml hair oil bottle were inserted in her vagina. The police tried to buy the silence of the child’s family for 2,000 rupees ($40) and refused to press charges. “When I went to lodge an FIR, police refused to register the case. If they had made a better attempt, they would have found her. Police told me to be happy that she was alive,” her father alleged. A schoolgirl who tried to meet the victim in the hospital was slapped at least four times by a male assistant commissioner of police in full view of the media.
On 16 December 2012, a 23-year old paramedical student was gangraped and brutalized with an iron rod by 6 men in a school bus that caused her intestines to come out through her vagina. She and her friend were thrown out of the bus, only to be found hours later. The female victim passed away due to gangrene of internal organs.
Justice and safety are needed in India and this petition is the collaborative effort.
With hope and determination,
Lakshmi, Alaphia, Meredith, Patricia, Alice, Ricken and the entire Avaaz team
