Candle light vigils, prayer meetings, street plays and a series of other events on Tuesday marked two years of the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus in the city that had triggered widespread nation-wide outrage forcing the government to enact stricter laws against sexual assault.
“That day, this very moment my daughter said she would come back within 2-3 hours. But that never happened. She never came back,” the mother of the girl said at a prayer meeting on Tuesday evening.
“We are yet to get justice. Nothing has changed. The society came together for a brief period. The case is in Supreme Court but we are not getting a date for the last six months. The system stays where it was,” she said.
By the time she finished her brief speech, eyes of the audience assembled, including a host of dignitaries, to pay homage to the girl had started welling.
Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, Congress leader Salman Khurshid, former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy and former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar paid floral tributes to the young girl, at the poignant function organised by the Nirbhaya Trust, run by her parents.
Gandhi charted out the governmental steps that were in the “process” against sexual violence.
“We have drafted a Juvenile Justice Bill that was introduced in Parliament and is now with the Select Committee. We will try to get it passed in the Monsoon Session. We are also initiating rape-crisis centres and adding more teeth to National Commission for Women which is powerless now,” she said.
Kejriwal said that women in Delhi “were and still continue to be insecure” leading to Delhi being labelled as the “rape capital”.
“The incident happened two years ago. But women in Delhi were and still continue to be insecure. Delhi is often called the rape capital but the residents of Delhi are not that bad. There’s some lacunae in the system itself," the Aam Aadmi Party chief said.
Asking people to look at the mirror, former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar said, “Things would hardly change provided mindset doesn’t change.”
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy pitched for a strong law that will make the convict “incapable” of committing any such crime in the future.
People placed floral bouquets and lit candles at the bus stop in Munirka in South Delhi from where the 23-year-old physiotherapy student had taken a bus in which she was brutally gang-raped by six persons.
Scores of AAP volunteers also formed a human chain around the Mandi House circle in remembrance of the brave heart.
A bus ride was organised by a number of NGOs as a reminder of the gruesome incident and to highlight alleged lack of security for women in the city.
Ranjana Kumari, Director, Centre for Social Research, who is leading a campaign, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the security concerns of women in the city.
Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said he would be satisfied only when there is zero crime against women in the city.
He claimed that the sudden rise in crime against women meant that women were now more confident to report such incidents than it was two years ago. “I would like to tell you that after the December 16 incident, women feel more confident to report about the incidents. Changes made in the law have also helped,” Bassi said.
There has been a spurt in registration of cases of crime against women in the national capital since 2012. The number of FIRs registered for rape rose from 680 in 2012 to 1,559 cases in 2013 and 1,925 cases till November this year.
The number of molestation cases has also gone up from 615 in 2012 to 3,347 last year and 3,932 cases (till November).
Image: A girl holds a placard on the second anniversary of the deadly gang rape of a student on a bus, in New Delhi. Photograph: PTI photo
