No PCR vans present during night hours

Even after two days of a 51-year-old Danish woman was gang raped by eight vagabonds in the heart of the capital near New Delhi railway station, the area – Railway Officers Club -- still remains a hub of other street drug and alcohol addicts.  Not only places in Lutyens Delhi, there are around 700 vulnerable spots with poor lighting and 74 dark spots across the city. These places are frequented by drug addicts.

When I ventured out onto these areas, the tall claims of law enforcers of intensified patrolling fell flat. No Police Control Room vans visible at least through five hours of drive, unmanned barricade, locked police post, deserted streets with no street light are enough to give criminal a free hand.

Even at the spot of Danish woman gang raped there were liquor bottles were lying nearby. Though three Railway Protection Special Force personnel (RPSC) deputed for the Railway Officers Club, areas adjoining the club is still a hub of alcoholics and drug addicts. When asked about it, a RPSC personnel Tej Singh said, “We have been deputed a day ago for club security and found that local ruffians come in the areas beside the club and consume drugs and alcohols.” The personnel stated that they are huge in numbers and present through the day and they can’t intervene as they have been asked to guard the club.

If this is the condition of areas near Connaught Place, the areas in west, east and south and even worse.  Even in the high profile VIP Zone – South Avenue where parliamentarians stay, there were unmanned police barricades, leave aside the presence of PCR or a cop in the close vicinity. This is the area not far away from five-star Leela hotel in Chanakyapuri where all police action was seen during the night.

The most shocking was the police booth outside Ram Manohar Lohia hospital was locked and no one was present in the vicinity. “This police booth is for namesake. No police officials stay during night,” said tea vendor out the hospital. 

There is no street light at the lane behind police headquarter. The areas near Mata Sundri Road and Bal Bhawan has similar look where streetlights here and there.

Around half of the 330 bus stops in the list of vulnerable spots visited on Friday night were found deserted and people struggling to find means of transportation.  The Munirka bus stop from where December 16 brutal gang rape victim was picked up was abandoned with no PCR vans or local police patrolling around five kilometers range from there. 

The entire stretch of Vansant Kunj, Vasant Vihar, Mahipalpur, Mehrauli and Dhaula Kuan where several gang rape incidents took place in last three years, there was not a single man in khaki found manning on these venerable roads. On Saturday around 1, the entire stretch from Bersarai -- between Jawaharlal Nehru University and IIT Delhi -- to Vasant Kunj, commuters were standing on bus stop and not a single police official were present over there.

Naresh Gujjar a resident of Vasant Kunj said, “When people make call to police control room then only they come. Patrolling in these areas is a joke. They are busy after 10 pm collecting money from truck.” 

The top priority of commissioner of police B S Bassi to minimize heinous and street crime seems nearly impossible with this scenario. He had stated that the PCR vans and local police have been deployed in all such vulnerable spots to prevent incidents of crimes against women and other crimes like snatching and robbery.

But the reality check exposes that the promises made by the commissioner are just on paper and not on implementation front. 

ENDS

Danish woman gang raped, robbed

On January 14, a 51-year-old woman tourist from Denmark was confined, beaten and gang-raped at knife point by eight perpetrators at Central Delhi’s Paharganj on Tuesday evening, police said.  The woman was also robbed of her valuables.  None of the accused has been arrested till Wednesday night while police claimed to have identified all the perpetrators.

The incident took place between 5 pm to 7.45 pm on Tuesday night at a secluded place situated behind Railway Officers Club, close to the New Delhi railway station.

The victim came to India on January 1, on a tourist visa alone to visit various historical monuments. After visiting Agra in Uttar Pradesh, she returned to the national capital on January 13 morning and checked-in a room for two nights at Hotel Amax Inn.  As most of the monuments were closed on Monday, she visited Connaught Place and India Gate area.

On Tuesday afternoon, she went to visit the National Museum. While she was walking down to the hotel with the help of a travel map, she lost her way and reached near B block, Connaught Place, where she a group youngsters. 

The victim asked a youngster for correct direction of the hotel. He tricked her and directed to take State Entry Road straightaway. She started walking down the road and found at the end an isolated place surrounded by bushes. 

In the meantime, two youngsters were following her ever since she enquired. When saw no way out of the road, she turned only to find herself being overpowered by the youths on knife point.

The accused robbed her of valuables including Rs 3,000, 750 euro, I-Pod and cell phone. The rest of youngsters in the meantime reached at the spot. They dragged her to the bushes and eight of perpetrators took turn to rape her, said a senior police officer adding that the victim resisted them but she was beaten up.

The perpetrators then fled from the spot threatening her of dire consequences. The injured and traumatised victim managed to come out of the road and took auto rickshaw to her hotel and rang her friends and family in Denmark from the hotel at around 8 pm. She, thereafter, called up embassy and then informed hotel manager identified as Pushkar who made a call to police control room at 9: 30 pm.

Immediately, a team comprising senior police officers reached the spot and met the victim at her hotel, where they recorded her statement. A police officer said that the woman was ‘highly traumatised’ when she reached the police station. “She was bruised on her face and neck,” said the officer.

A case of gang rape, robbery and kidnapping has been registered at with the Paharganj police station against the accused.  The Danish Embassy has also been informed by the police in this regard.

Where the incident took place, the Railway Officer Club’s employees said that there were uprooting a tent on at the time the gang rape took place and they have no idea the perpetrators were.

“The Lohri festival was celebrated last night. The labours were inside the premises. It is difficult to believe that a group of people took the woman and raped her,” the employee added.

The Joint Commissioner of Police (Central), Sandeep Goel told Mail Today, “All the perpetrators who are around seven to eight in numbers, have been identified. Several dedicated teams of senior police officers have been formed, pressed into service and the accused would be landed in police net soon.” 

The woman had refused to be medically examined and that the police were trying to gather other evidence. “The victim was supposed to fly to her hometown on Wednesday and she had left the hotel,” the hotel manager.

In the meantime investigating sleuths have detained around 32 people who are interrogated at Paharganj police station in the presence of senior police officers. The investigators said that the victim has promised to cooperate with the probe agency whenever required.

Foreigners raped in Delhi

January 4, 2014: A Polish woman was drugged and raped as she travelled to Delhi with her two-year-daughter. The woman, 33, and her daughter were travelling in a taxi from the city of Mathura where they live to New Delhi when she was allegedly raped by the driver. The woman woke up on a bench outside a Nizamuddin railway station in New Delhi with her toddler crying by her side, the officer said.

June 19, 2013 : Two sisters, hailing from Uzbekistan, have alleged that they were gangraped for several months by unknown men after being kept in confinement by a woman from their own country. The girls, who came to Delhi in January, claimed they were promised jobs by the Uzbek woman. They stayed in a hotel in Paharganj where they met the woman. The woman took the sisters to a guest house in Vasant Kunj where they were allegedly raped after they were served with soft drinks laced with sedatives, police said quoting the girls.

February 7, 2013:  A 23-year-old national from China was raped by her Indian friend at Hauz Khas in south Delhi on Monday night, after the two had attended a party. The accused, Tariq Sheikh, 28, a management graduate who works as a party organizer, was arrested.  The victim, who works as a trainee executive for a firm in Gurgaon, told the police that she and Sheikh were at a party in Malviya Nagar in south Delhi where he offered her more drinks and forced himself on her.

ENDS