‘The animals... How will our daughters get married now?’

Three hours before the men behind the brutal gangrape of the 23-year-old physiotherapist realised she had finally succumbed to their demonic assault, their families deserted their humble homes in shame.

Three hours before the men behind the brutal gangrape of the 23-year-old physiotherapist realised she had finally succumbed to their demonic assault, their families deserted their humble homes in shame.

HT Image

A father among them, however, perhaps out of denial or in exercise of his last ounce of self-esteem, attempted to save his son’s reputation as he confronted a neighbour at RK Puram’s Ravi Das slum cluster — but in vain.

“I ran into Vinay’s father around 7am,” claimed a neighbour. “He stopped me and asked what I thought of a recent case in which a woman had lodged a seemingly false case in an effort to get her hands on property.”

The neighbour, apparently, gave him the following reply: “Maybe it was, but it doesn’t justify what your son did.” An hour later, the neighbour claimed, she saw a padlock on the door of Vinay’s house. “And so did the others; they left too — all the four families, locking their doors the same way.”

Groups of usually inquisitive local residents at the humble slum cluster — visibly agitated after getting wind of the victim’s death — preferred not to meet the eyes of visitors and strangers when approached.

“To think such animals were among us. How will our daughters get married now?” said a neighbour who finally spoke after much persuasion.

UNEASY CALM
An uneasy calm engulfed Karmalahang, a non-descript village, 35 km from Aurangabad in Bihar, on Saturday.

This is where Akshay Kumar Singh alias Thakur, 25, grew up. One of the six Delhi rape accused, Singh has a beautiful wife and a two-and-a-half-year-old son.

With the possibility of death sentence now looming large, his wife fainted twice after hearing the news of the girl’s death in Singapore.