Action and not words needed to stop heinous crimes: Sonia Gandhi

With the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi sparking outrage, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today sent out a tough message to authorities that "action and not words" are necessary to stop recurrence of such incidents.

With the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi sparking outrage, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday sent out a tough message to authorities that "action and not words" are necessary to stop recurrence of such incidents.

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"Congress president Sonia Gandhi has condemned the heinous incident of rape of the five-year-old girl. She has appealed to the government and the administration that action and not words are required to ensure that such incidents never happen again in future," party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told PTI.

Gandhi also emphasised the need for "awareness" among citizens to stop such incidents, saying these kinds of crimes can be stopped only when each and every citizen of the country is alert and aware.

"The entire society needs to be alert and aware to prevent such incidents," she said.

Sources, meanwhile, said that Gandhi is also likely to visit the victim in AIIMS.

Gandhi had earlier also reacted very sharply to the December 16 South Delhi gang-rape incident.

In her strongly-worded letter to home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Gandhi had then said, "It is a shame for all of us who are responsible for the security of our cities that a young woman can be raped in a moving bus in the capital of the country and flung on to the street."

Noting that "this monstrous crime deserves not only universal condemnation but also the government's most urgent attention", she had said that it was imperative that the police and other agencies concerned are sensitised to the danger that our daughters, sisters and mothers face every day.

In a throwback to scenes of December last in the wake of gangrape of a girl in a moving bus, protests erupted in the national capital today demanding justice for the five-year-old girl who was brutally raped and punishment for policemen for their insensitivity in dealing with the case.

The police have, meanwhile, arrested the 22-year-old accused from Bihar's Muzaffarpur district.