Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 25: In yet another Madhya Pradesh shocker, a newly-married woman was gang raped in Rewa after tying her husband with a tree and a young neurodivergent woman was sexually assaulted by a daily wager in Indore evoking opposition protest against the BJP government in the state.
The two horrific incidents have revived the memory of the recent rape of a girl friend of a trainee army personnel at Mhow, near Indore and horrifying incident from Ujjain in September last year when a minor girl was raped and left bleeding on the streets, and went from door to door asking for help, only to be turned away by heartless citizens. For two hours, she was ignored by more than 500 homes and restaurants, as well as officials at a toll booth, till a temple priest spotted and rushed her to a hospital, and called the police.
In the Rewa case, a couple at a picnic spot near a temple was attacked. The husband was tied to a tree and his wife was gang-raped. Her rapists filmed the assault and threatened to release the video online if the couple filed a police complaint. This was on October 21. The police filed a case next day and have rounded up more than 100 people for questioning but has not made any arrest so far.
The woman had got married recently and the couple is in the age group of 19-20, still in college, Rewa headquarters Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Himali Pathak said. In her statement, the survivor told the police one of the five persons who allegedly sexually assaulted her has tattoos on his hand and chest. The woman was sent for a medical examination.
In Indore, CCTV footage showed the woman wandering, half-naked and bleeding, in the city’s Sadar Bazaar area around 3.45 am. The cops, acting with more haste in this case, reviewed the footage and found she had been accosted, hours earlier, by the worker, now identified as Sonu. The footage showed Sonu leading the woman to a waste treatment facility less than an hour before she was found. The police later said Sonu had confessed to the rape.
The state’s Congress chief, Jitu Patwari, hit out at the ruling BJP on X. “The daughter is naked on the road (while) the Chief Minister is busy at an event,” he said, taking a swipe over the Ladli Behna Yojna, a women’s welfare initiative launched by Mr Mohan Yadav’s predecessor, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and which was credited with helping the BJP win last year’s Assembly election.
Mr Patwari also compared the condition in which the Indore woman was found to the disrobing of Droupadi in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, asking, “Can’t the Chief Minister who considers himself ‘God’ see the disrobing of Draupadi?” “I am angry and worried at the plight of our daughters. Crimes against our daughters are not stopping but the Chief Minister is sitting with his eyes closed.”
Responding for the state government, junior Minister Narendra Shivaji Patel pointed out that the accused – in the Indore case – had been arrested and emphasised the BJP’s commitment to handling such matters sensitively. “The law will teach the accused a lesson… they will not be spared.”
Mr Patel also said the BJP government prioritises the welfare of neurodivergent individuals, with the Social Justice and Welfare Department involved in supporting them. “Regardless of the city, the department is carrying out responsibilities diligently,” he claimed.
