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Assam rape: Father says traumatised teen victim 'couldn't talk'
The father of the 14 year old girl who was raped in Nagaon, Assam spoke out about the state of the victim and the need to properly punish those accused
The father of the 14-year old girl who was gang-raped in Nagaon, Assam on August 22, said that his daughter could barely talk when he met her after the incident.
The minor is currently admitted at the Nagaon Medical College and Hospital, where she was taken after locals found her in a semi-conscious state on Thursday evening near the main road leading to her village. The area had no lights and was surrounded by only paddy fields.
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The girl lived with her grandparents and her aunt as her father worked in Guwahati and her mother had passed away. Her grandmother said she had been worried on Friday when the girl did not return from tuition classes in another village, around 6 kilometers away.
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Her cousin stated that she was the only girl in the village who travelled to another school to study as it was an English medium institution. The teen did not have a mobile phone and when she didn't return home at 6 pm, her grandmother found out from a friend that she had left from her tuitions long back.
Her father returned from Guwahati that night and said, “When I met her, she couldn’t even talk… Everyone in our village is in fear," he told The Indian Express.
24-year-old Tafazul Islam was arrested on Friday, one of three accused in the rape of a 14-year-old. The other two accused are absconding.
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According to the police, following his interrogation, Islam was taken to the crime scene around 3 am on Saturday, when he jumped into a pond while still handcuffed in a bid to escape. He died.
"We want the other two accused to be caught and punished. Otherwise people will continue to live in fear that something like this can happen to their girls too,” the minor girl's father said.
The police claim that since the village had been crowded due to protests, Saturday night was the perfect time to take the accused to the crime scene to gauge his familiarity and see if he would identify others involved in the case.
“We cordoned the area and called the State Disaster Relief Force, which recovered the body. A constable who was holding his handcuffs suffered an injury to his hand,” Superintendent of Police, Nagaon, Swapnaneel Deka said.
Amidst fear of tensions between the victim's village and the neighbouring village where Islam's family lives, villagers are proposing “socially boycotting” his family.
To allay tensions, residents of Islam’s village have declared that they will “socially boycott” his family.
Since Saturday, 65 police, 25 CRPF personnel and 50 police commandos have been stationed in the accused Islam's village to prevent any conflict between communities.
On Friday, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “I always say that in places like Lower Assam, Central Assam and Barak, our indigenous people live in fear… All the places where indigenous people are in the minority, in those areas, our people are always living with troubles.”
