Priyanka meets family of Unnao rape victim, says UP ‘no land for women''

Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, December 7

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday declared that “Uttar Pradesh was clearly no land for women”.

“Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath says that there is no place for criminals in Uttar Pradesh. It appears that there is no place for women here,” said Priyanka.

She briefly spoke to the media after spending almost half-an-hour with the grieving family of the Unnao rape victim.

Charging the gram pradhan Hari Shankar of being close to the BJP Priyanka said that the rape victims family had been terrorised for almost a year.

“Emboldened by his political connections the gram pradhan some time ago had entered the house of the rape victim dragged out the father and beat him mercilessly”.

She said that the culprit’s family had even burnt down their fields and just a day before the incident the main culprit, the gram pradhan’s son Shivam Trivedi had dared to come to the rape victim’s house to threaten to set her ablaze if she did not take back her complaint.

Blaming Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath for the sorry state of affairs she said that criminals in Uttar Pradesh no longer feared the law enforcing machinery and it was women who were scared. “Even none year old girls were scared to attend school”, she said.

The gram pradhan’s son Shivam Dwivedi is the main accused in the rape case. He and the cousin were released on bail on November 30.

In the wee hours of December 5, he, his gram pradhan father, uncle, cousin and another person had accosted the rape victim on the outskirts of the village and set her ablaze.

The brave girl is said to have ran for a kilometre with her body in flames till help came. She was on the way to board a train to Rae Bareli for a court date set. All five are in police custody.

Changing her programme to leave for New Delhi, Priyanka has reached Rae Bareli’s Khusthi village where she is interacting with farmers.

Meanwhile, Congress workers in Lucknow have been lathi charged when they were trying to gherao the BJP office.

BSP president Mayawati is scheduled to meet Governor Anandiben Patel to apprise her of the dismal law and order situation in the state.

She said that violence against women had increased in the state and the state government did not appear serious to address it.

After briefly sitting on a dharna outside the CM’s secretariat SP president Akhilesh Yadav decided to send a five-member team to Unnao to meet the rape survivor’s family.