Meerut gangrape: Hindu groups unite, victim critical in hospital

The victim in the Meerut gangrape case was on Wednesday admitted to a private hospital where her condition is critical, according to reports, even as Hindu groups in the highly sensitive town ramp up pressure against the police and state administration  in the case. A report in Hindustan Times said the victim, who has alleged that she was abducted, gangraped and forcibly converted to Islam by a maulvi,was admitted without details of her previous medical condition. The HT report quotes Sangeeta Garg, medical superintendent at the Ghaziabad hospital, as saying the girl’s family admitted her to the private hospital but they did not arrive with “her previous medical reports”. She told the paper, “We got her admitted and her condition is critical. She told us that she was operated upon for an ectopic pregnancy and her health condition deteriorated following the surgery.” The report adds that the doctors suspect she was operated “by some quack or at an unhygienic location that led to the infection.” Meanwhile, organisations including the Hindu Jagran Manch, Hindu Mahasabha, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini, among others, formed the Hindu Bahu-Beti Bachao Sangharsh Samiti to demand the arrest of the main accused," adds another Hindustan Times report. The groups have threatened to hold a mahapanchayat is their demands are not met in two days. They had also asked the authorities to ensure that the victim get “Rs 50 lakh compensation and a government job,” adds the report. The 20-year-old victim was a teacher at madarsa in Meerut and she has alleged that has alleged that she was forcibly converted to Islam in a madarsa in Hapur. In addition, she has said she was held captive in another madrasa in Muzaffarnagar for three days, where she was sexually assaulted. [caption id=“attachment_1654049” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The victim in a television interview to CNN-IBN. Image from IBN-Live[/caption] Initially it was reported that the girl’s fallopian tubes were missing. However a report in the Indian Express said that the girl was operated upon for an ectopic pregnancy. The report added that the senior officials’ statements remained unclear about exactly what preliminary investigation has found. While police had on Tuesday confirmed sexual assault, the State secretary (home) Kamal Saksena and IG (Law and Order) Amrendra Sengar, said the medical examination has not stated anything about sexual assault. The report added that the DIG of the Meerut Range K Satyanarayan had confirmed the recovery of an affidavit regarding religious conversion performed by a maulvi from Hapur and the maulvi reportedly maintains that the girl was willing to convert. BJP MP from Meerut Rajinder Aggarwal raised the issue in Parliament and demanded a CBI probe into the incident. Alok Sisodia, the BJP’s media coordinator for UP West, was quoted as saying “We want to know the address of the madrassa where the woman was confined and also about the whereabouts of the nursing home where she was operated upon; who were the doctors who operated upon her and who were they reporting to. We will put pressure on the administration to reveal the details.” The latest gangrape case however is only going to add to Meerut’s reputation of recording the highest number of rapes in Western UP. According to a Times of India report, “With 62 rape cases registered in 2013, an almost three-fold jump from 22 in 2012, the city has recorded the highest number of rape cases in the region.” Meanwhile the union home ministry has sought a report from the Uttar Pradesh government on the case. The central government, expressing its deep concern over the allegations, has also asked the Akhilesh Yadav govrnment to probe the matter threadbare. Samajwadi Party (SP) Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, meanwhile, has said that the government was probing the matter and assured that if the charges were found to be true, no one would be spared.