In an emotional appeal for justice, the traumatised family, victims in the brutal Bulandshahr gang-rape, knocked on the door of the Supreme Court.
The victims, including a mother and her 14-year-old daughter, recounted their story of how they were raped by a gang in front of the latter’s father on the deserted National Highway 91 between Noida and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, in the dead of the night on July 29.
The family said their quest for fair justice has suffered a rude shock because of the insensitivities of the police and the “outrageous” comments made by State Urban Development Minister and ruling Samajwadi Party leader, Azam Khan. Mr. Khan had called the crime a “political conspiracy” against the State government.
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The petition filed by the family, represented by advocate Kislay Pandey, said Mr. Khan’s statement has “substantially outraged the modesty of the rape victims,” especially the minor daughter.
Arraigning the state of Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Khan, the State Police Chief and the Bulandshahr Senior Superintendent of Police as opposite parties in the case, the family accused them of causing “serious and substantive infringement of the fundamental rights of the petitioner [victims] to live a lawful life, right to equality before law and right to civil liberty.”
The family has sought the apex court to transfer the trial from U.P. to Delhi.
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It has further asked the court to direct the State to provide the minor victim “respectable and appropriate free of cost and safe educational arrangements” till the time they get justice.