The instances of rape in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh and in Kathua, Jammu have set off protests and candlelight marches in several cities, and the Opposition, sensing political gold, has begun carefully crafting their strategy against the BJP.
The party is in power in UP, and is a junior partner in Jammu and Kashmir’s governing alliance with Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP.
In Kathua, an eight-year-old girl was murdered after being allegedly gang-raped, while in Unnao, a 17-year-old has accused a BJP MLA of raping her.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) affiliate and Chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, completed four days of an indefinite fast in Delhi on Monday, while the Congress, which organised a midnight march to protest against rising crimes against women, demanded swift action.
On Monday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fast-track cases of rapes of minors and punish the guilty if he was serious about providing justice to the “country’s daughters”. Rahul pointed out that there were as many as 19,675 cases of rapes of minor children in 2016, terming them as “shameful”.
“There were 19,675 rapes of minor children reported in 2016. This is shameful. PM should fast track these cases and punish the guilty if he is serious about providing justice for our daughters,” Gandhi said on Twitter, using the hash-tag ‘SpeakUp’. His remarks come days after Modi said the guilty in the Kathua and Unnao incidents would not be spared and that the country’s daughters will get justice.
Meanwhile, two of the BJP leaders who quit as ministers in the Mufti government owing to their support for the accused in the Kathua case, demanded that the Chief Minister take “moral responsibility” for the upheaval caused by the crime. Lal Singh and Chandra Prakash Ganga had addressed a rally organised by Hindu Ekta Manch in March in support of the accused in the Kathua case. The BJP had, last week, asked them to resign and work on pacifying the local population.