Delhi girl rape & murder: Rahul Gandhi, Kejriwal meet victim's kin

FORMER Indian National Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday (4) met the family of the nine-year-old Dalit girl who was allegedly gang-raped and murdered in the capital’s cantonment area on Sunday (1) and forcibly cremated.

Gandhi, who is a parliamentarian from the southern state of Kerala, said he spoke with the family of the girl and they want nothing short of justice. “They’re saying justice is not being given to them and that they should be helped. We will do that. I said ‘I am standing with you. Rahul Gandhi is standing with them until they get justice’,” the 51-year-old leader was quoted by news agency ANI.

'Am with them'

“Her parents’ tears are saying only one thing - their daughter, the daughter of this country, deserves justice. And I am with them on this path of justice,” Gandhi said.

On Tuesday (3), the Congress leader called the deceased girl “the nation’s daughter” – a pointed reference to India’s women Olympians, who have been widely called as “the country’s daughters” after bagging medals at the top sporting event.

Kejriwal, a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, also met the girl’s kin and also faced a small mishap as he fell from the platform from which he was to address the media after the visit because it was overcrowded. Kejriwal was not hurt.

He announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh ($13,474) for the girl’s family.

“I met her parents. Her loss can’t be compensated... but Delhi government will provide ₹ 10 lakhs compensation and will order magisterial inquiry... we will appoint top lawyers so culprits get strict punishment,” Kejriwal told reporters after the meeting.

Kejriwal calls incident 'very shameful'

On Tuesday, Kejriwal, who has sought for improvements to the capital city’s law and order situation, pledged to help the girl’s family seek justice and called her death “very shameful”.

“The murder of a nine-year-old innocent in Delhi, after subjecting her to brutality, is very shameful. There is a need to improve the law and order situation... culprits should be given capital punishment,” he said.

Ingit Pratap Singh, the deputy commissioner of police, south west Delhi, told Indian news channel NDTV that the post-mortem results were not conclusive. He said the four accused in the case would be made to undergo lie-detector and drug tests.

On Tuesday (3), it was reported that three doctors will conduct an autopsy of the girl’s charred remains. She was allegedly gang-raped and murdered at a crematorium in south-west Delhi and the four accused of the act includes the 55-year-old priest of the crematorium.

The accused have been booked under sections related to rape, murder and threatening charges, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and SC/ST Act. The accused though have claimed that the girl died of electrocution while fetching water from an electric cooler but her family accused them of cremating the body quickly after threatening it against informing the police about the death.

Protests in New Delhi for days

The national capital witnessed protests for the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday with hundreds thronging the streets and demanding accountability for the girl’s death. “We want justice,” they chanted, with placards that read: “Justice for India's daughter”.

The incident is being compared to the gangrape of a Dalit woman in North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in September last year. In that case too, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gangraped by four men from upper castes and the body was cremated in a hurry and without her family’s consent, sparking anger across the country.

In December 2012, a paramedical student was violently raped in a moving bus in Delhi in the night and the incident sparked a massive outrage in India and abroad, forcing the government of the day to bring changes in laws to punish the culprit. The woman died in a hospital in Singapore a few weeks later and the killers were hanged in March 2020.

A Congress-led alliance was in power at the Centre then.