Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 30: Even as the search for her family is still on, the police officer who had taken the 12-year old rape victim in the holy city of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh for medical examination has offered to adopt her.
Ajay Kumar Verma, the Station House Officer of Mahakal police station, Ujjain, said he had told the police commissioner that he wanted to adopt the child, believed to be a Dalit girl, if legal issues were sorted out.
“As far as the child is concerned, when I took her for her medical examination, I found that she was in a serious condition. I felt very sad and my eyes welled up when I saw the pain she was in, I thought why did God let this happen. So, I took a vow that I will provide complete protection to the girl, and I told the Commissioner of Police that I want to adopt her. The process of adoption is complex, I will talk to the family members about how to go about it, but as far as a father’s responsibility is concerned, I will do everything to fulfil that,” he said.
It is learnt that a counsellor in Indore, where the girl is admitted in a hospital, interacted with her and found that she belonged to the Satna district of MP. But she could not tell her name or address properly. Police had said a complaint about a girl of the same age going missing had been registered in Satna, but it was to be confirmed if the rape survivor was the same girl.
The girl was on Wednesday operated upon by a team of specialist doctors in Indore and her condition is said to be critical but stable, they said. The accused in the rape, Bharat Soni drives an autorickshaw. He was caught on Thursday and was injured when he tried to escape from police custody.
The girl who was seen walking on the streets of Ujjain half-naked and bleeding early on Monday morning, was admitted to the Government Maharaja Tukojirao Holkar Women’s Hospital in Indore where she underwent a major surgery on Wednesday. Medical examination has established that she was raped.
Bharat Soni, an autorickshaw driver, was arrested in the case on Thursday. He sustained injuries and was admitted in a hospital when he attempted to flee the scene after police took him to the crime spot for physical verification.
The father of the man arrested on charge of raping the girl, said he would favour capital punishment for his 24-year old son for committing the sin while the local bar association appealed that no lawyer should defend him in the court. “She could have been my daughter. It is a shameful act. Neither have I gone to hospital to meet him, nor will I go to the police station or courts. My son has committed a crime, therefore he should be hanged,” his father told reporters.
Ujjain Bar Council president Ashok Yadav said the incident had damaged the reputation of the temple city. “We are appealing to our members not to take up the case of the accused,” he said.
The opposition Congress, meanwhile, continued to target the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh over the incident and questioned the “silence” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The Congress slammed the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh where assembly elections are due by the year-end. Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate alleged that the law-and-order situation in the state had considerably deteriorated under Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
“In Madhya Pradesh, being a Dalit, tribal and woman has become a sin. Madhya Pradesh is number one in rapes of minors. Fifty-eight thousand rape cases and 68,000 kidnapping cases have been reported in 18 years of his (Chouhan’s) rule. But the country’s prime minister, home minister and all the BJP leaders are just sitting silent,” Shrinate told reporters in Delhi.
She also questioned the “silence” of Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani, the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) over the incident.
Randeep Singh Surjewala, the Congress general secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh, claimed that the attack on this “Dalit girl” was more brutal than that on the Nirbhaya case victim. Surjewala also visited the Holkar Women’s Hospital in Indore.
