Justice will be done, Sonia tells family of gang rape victim

Congress president Sonia Gandhi arrives to meet the family of a Dalit girl, who immolated herself after being allegedly gang-raped, at Sachcha Khera in Jind district of Haryana on Tuesday.

At a time when the Congress government in Haryana is under attack for a spate of gang-rapes, party president and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi flew into this district on Tuesday and met the mother of a 16-year-old girl who immolated herself after being assaulted by two persons.

Soon after reaching the district, Ms. Gandhi met the mother of the victim and assured all help to the family. The girl, in her statement to the area magistrate, had narrated how she was assaulted. She allegedly doused herself with kerosene and set herself alight. She was taken to a Rohtak hospital.

After the girl died on Saturday, her mother threatened to follow suit if the perpetrators of the crime were not brought to book.

Ms. Gandhi expressed outrage at the gruesome crimes against women in the State and elsewhere, and declared that the guilty would be “severely punished’’ and justice would be done to the family.

The Congress president, later at Sachha Khera in Narwana Town, denounced such acts and called for strict action against the perpetrators of such a heinous crime.