A five year old girl who was raped and left in a critical condition has been abandoned by her parents at India's leading hospital, an opposition leader has revealed amid growing anger over sexual assaults on children.
Sushma Swaraj, parliamentary leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, was visiting another five year old rape victim in a critical condition whose case had sparked protests throughout the capital when she was told by nurses of the abandoned girl and other victims they had treated.
The discovery of more child rape victims at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has revived the intense debate and national introspection over the scale of sexual violencein the country which followed the gang rape of a 23 year old student on a Delhi bus in December. She died two weeks later from chronic internal injuries.
Mrs Swaraj said she had believed that debate would lead to improvemed public safety for women, but Indian women are now more at risk than before. "I had thought that after Damini case thinking will change. Unfortunately, the situation has worsened," she said.
Human rights campaigners said there had been a 336 per cent increased in child rapes in India since 2001, from 2,113 cases to 7,112 in 2011. But even this figure is likely to be an underestimate because only a minority of cases are reported to the police, they said.
In this latest case, the family had reported their daughter missing soon after she disappeared but the police were reluctant to investigate and later offered them 2000 rupees, around 25 pounds, to remain silent about it, the family said. When the family and their friends demonstrated over their treatment, one officer, who has since been suspended, was seen slapping a young female protestor.
Their daughter had been kidnapped on April 15th and raped and object-raped in an hour long ordeal before she was locked in a room and left to die. She was found 40 hours later and was rushed to hospital where doctors said she had suffered chronic internal injuries and that they had found a bottle of hair oil inside her. She has since had a colostomy operation and may face further reconstructive surgery, but is now in a stable condition, doctors said.
Sushma Swaraj said when she went to the hospital to visit the victim, who has been identified as 'Gudiya', she was shown another, unidentified, five year old rape victim who had suffered an almost identical ordeal but had been abandoned there by her parents.
"I saw another five year old girl child in the next room. She is also a rape victim. She was found abandoned in the AIIMS Campus. She says her father is a Rickshaw puller. She misses her mother but does not want to go home. Doctors told me that only few days back, they discharged a male child who was a victim of sodomy. I think we should hang these criminals and save our children," she said.
An 11 year old girl who was gang-raped in Rajasthan last August is also undergoing a series of operations at the hospital to reconstruct her internal organs.
Police have since arrested a 22 year old man in Bihar for the kidnap and rape of ﾑGudiyaﾒ. He had been working as a casual labourer in Delhi.
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