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As the five year old rape victim continues to fight for her life at AIIMS, Delhi braces itself for more protests on Sunday against rising rape cases in the capital and police insensitivity.
Pressure is also mounting on the police to take action against policemen who failed to perform their duty. Protesters have demanded that Assistant Commissioner of Police BS Ahlawat be arrested and proscecuted for slapping a woman protesters at the hospital where the victim was admitted.
Most of the protests this weekend have been against the insensitivity of the Delhi Police. On Saturday, many protesters gathered outside the Delhi Police Headquarters and demanded the resignation of Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar.
The girl, in the meanwhile is stable and responding to treatment.
While the capital was seething in anger over the rape, news came in the evening of a gang-rape of a 13-year-old girl by eight men.
Condemnation of the five-year-old's rape came from President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Hamid Ansari, while Congress president Sonia Gandhi paid a quiet visit to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where the girl is being treated and met her and her parents.
Gandhi's visit came even as a candle light vigil was held outside AIIMS by protesters.
Accused left the girl to die
A joint team of Delhi and Bihar Police succeeded in nabbing the rape accused, Manoj Kumar, 22, from his in-laws house in Chitkouna village in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district on early Saturday. He was flown to Delhi in a chartered plane and was interrogated by police.
The girl, a resident of east Delhi's Gandhi Nagar, was abducted by Manoj, a labourer, who lived on the ground floor of the same house in the working class neighbourhood. He kept her hostage for two days without food and water and subjected her to brutal repeated rape.
She was rescued when her family members heard her screams Wednesday, police said. The accused had locked the door from outside and fled, thinking that she had died.
"She was locked in the room for over 40 hours," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Prabhakar.
"Prima facie, it appears that Kumar had strangled the girl and she lost consciousness. She also gave in under the extreme pain inflicted by Kumar who inserted several objects inside body. Assuming her to be dead, Kumar locked the house and boarded a bus to New Delhi Railway Station from where he boarded the Swatantrata Senani Express for Muzaffarpur and left Delhi around 8.30 pm," said a source.
After leaving Delhi, Kumar first went to his ancestral house at Bharathua village in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district on April 16 and the next day reached in-laws' house in Chiknauta village.
His father-in-law Mahendra Sah said Kumar suddenly arrived at the village on Tuesday evening without any prior notice. "We had no clue what he was up to," he told reporters in Bihar. People in his native village have decided to boycott Kumar's family.
He is likely to be produced in Karkardooma court later in the day.
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Doctors at AIIMS in an evening bulletin said the girl's condition was stable and she was recovering.
Medical Superintendent DK Sharma said they had carried out a procedure to divert her stools as her private parts had suffered grievous injuries and were badly damaged.
Protests against police apathy
Protesters gave vent to their anger at the rising rapes. Delhi, which has earned the unflattering sobriquet of rape capital, has seen 393 rapes in the first three months of the year compared to 152 in the same period last year.
Students, women activists and members of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student's wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, laid siege outside the Police headquarters in the heart of the capital from early morning, shouting slogans and waving banners.
Their numbers swelled by afternoon. The crowd demanded the resignation of Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar. Many protesters tried to break the barricades and enter the Police Headquarters.
The restive crowd soon moved to AIIMS, while another batch of protesters moved to union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's house in Krishna Menon Marg in central Delhi and raised slogans against the deteriorating law and order situation.
Dozens also protested outside Congress president Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence.
Police imposed prohibitory orders around India Gate, to prevent a repeat of the earlier incidents in the aftermath of the Dec 16 gang-rape when protesters had overrun the area.
Gandhi on Saturday condemned the rape, saying "action and not words are required to check incidents like this heinous rape."
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj went a step further - demanding death penalty.
"They reflect a mental sickness which has crept in society...a strong law is not sufficient, they need a shock treatment... They should be hanged to send a strong message to other people," she told reporters.
The girl was shifted to AIIMS Friday from an east Delhi hospital where doctors had said they had never seen such a brutal attack after they removed a bottle and pieces of candle from her private parts.
Much of the anger of the protesters is also directed against police for having failed to act promptly after her father filed a missing complaint. After the rape was discovered last Wednesday the local police allegedly tried to bribe the poor parents with Rs.2,000 asking them to hush the incident.
In the second case reported from east Delhi's Farsh Bazaar, police registered an abduction report but failed to register a rape report. The parents on April 9 went to court, which ordered police to act. Three of the eight men have been arrested.