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Unnao survivor meets Rahul, Sonia, seeks help
The survivor said she hoped to meet President Droupadi Murmu, PM Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah to apprise them of the “injustice” done to her
Unnao rape survivor on Wednesday met Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, a day after the Delhi high court suspended the jail term of expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was serving a life sentence in the 2017 case. Separately, the survivor alleged that she was being stopped by security forces from holding a protest against the court verdict.
Before meeting the Congress leaders at Sonia Gandhi’s residence, the survivor told reporters that hoped to meet President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah to apprise them of the “injustice” done to her.
“This order has weakened the daughters of the country,” the survivor, who was a minor when the crime was committed in June 2017, said. “I also want to meet the Prime Minister and Amit Shah. Our President is a woman. I want to meet all of them and apprise them of the injustice done to me.”
After the meeting, where her family members were also present, the survivor said that both Rahul and Sonia Gandhi were emotional during the meeting. “They assured us that they would help us get justice. Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi were crying after hearing me. Rahul Gandhi has given us a lot of strength and assured us that we will get justice,” she added.
Hours after the court verdict, the survivor, along with her mother and an activist, sat on a protest at India Gate. However, they were removed from the site following which the survivor left for her Delhi residence on Tuesday night.
“When I reached home, my husband and the kids were waiting. I narrated the whole day’s sequence to him, cooked for the kids and fed them and then put them to sleep. I tried to sleep too but I barely could - thinking about what’s happening with me,” she told HT.
She alleged that when she tried to leave the house on Wednesday morning, she was stopped by personnel deployed for her safety. “Central Reserve Police Force officials who are sanctioned to protect me asked me for a written permission (from the police) to be able to go out. I tried to reason with them but they didn’t listen,” she alleged, adding that after an activist was involved that she was allowed to go.
The survivor further claimed that officials stopped her and her mother from protesting at Mandi House. She alleged that her mother was not allowed on the bus. “My mother was pushed out of the bus. They (security personnel) said they are only sanctioned to protect me and not my mother. We were not allowed to protest,” she added.
The high court, while suspending Sengar’s jail term till his appeal against his conviction and sentencing in the case was pending, restricted him from coming within a five-kilometre radius of the survivor. It came after the woman’s lawyer flagged security concerns. Sengar, however, remains in jail since he is also serving a 10-year imprisonment in the April 2018 custodial death case of the rape survivor’s father.
The meeting with the Congress leaders on Wednesday evening came hours after the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in a post on X, condemned the alleged manhandling of the survivor by security personnel at India Gate.
“Is such treatment of a gang-rape survivor appropriate? Is it her ‘fault’ that she has the courage to raise her voice for justice?” Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X. “...Bail for rapists and treating survivors like criminals — what kind of justice is this? We are not just becoming a dead economy — with such inhuman incidents, we are also turning into a dead society,” he added.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the survivor and her family raised multiple concerns during the meeting. In a post on X, Khera said the family sought assistance in securing a legal team to pursue the case following the suspension of Sengar’s sentence.
“The family requested assistance in securing a top legal team to pursue the case against her perpetrator,” Khera said.
He added that the family also requested support in relocating to a Congress-ruled state due to “serious concerns for their safety and the threat to their lives.”
In December 2019, a trial court convicted Sengar for raping a girl in Unnao and sentenced him to imprisonment for the remainder of his life. The former BJP leader is also serving a 10-year jail term in connection with the custodial death of the rape survivor’s father, who died on April 9, 2018.
