“24 rapes in 3 months; 489 rapes in 2010 alone. 1,379 females abducted; 1 rape in every 18 hours.”
This is New Delhi for you.”
Where cities like Mumbai claim to be the financial capital of India and Kolkata the cultural capital,
Delhi takes the distinction of being called as the Rape Capital of India.
Several times questions regarding safety for women in the capital have been raised. Exactly how safe
are women in DELHI?
I am a woman in the city of Delhi. I am the daughter you see walking to college everyday in a hurry and ignoring the snide remarks of the people around. I fear walking alone or travelling alone. I look at ever passerby with suspicious eyes full of fear and hold on to the bottle of pepper spray my parents wouldn’t let me leave without. I am the wife you see standing at a bus stop encircled by random men. I am also the sister you see running to catch a DTC bus and being inappropriately touched – accidently - by the men around. I am the employee travelling in the metro up and down and I am also the mother going to buy grocery yet feeling like being on a mission. Even the closed vicinity of my car seems too unsafe and making through the distance between work and home seems like a great accomplishment every day. I fear wearing the clothes I like, fear going to the places I want to or the things I need to do.”
In all these faces lies a similarity and that is FEAR. “
If you’re a female take a walk on any street in Delhi today. There is cent percent chance that you will be stared and/or whistled at and hear obscene remarks being made about you. You may be followed or have a car/bike encircle you. This is to say the least. The look in their eyes is enough to make you feel humiliated and disgusted. If you go through only this- well, today might just be your lucky day. There have been enough statistics published and news reports to prove what more happens.
“Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused.”
- Freda Adler
in the National Capital. 19 year old girl shot dead in broad daylight on her way to college. BPO
employee gang raped in a moving cab and thrown on the railway track half dead. 77 year old woman
raped and beaten up by a rickshaw puller. “
These are just a few incidents. Thousands have happened and continue happening. And even more have never been reported. One in four rapes take place in Delhi. “Only 1 in 69 cases get reported”, admits Delhi Commissioner of Police, BK Gupta and out of which only 20% percent of these cases
result in the conviction of the accused.
Police patrolling is as inefficient and ineffective as it can be. And for these reasons incidents of gang rape in moving vehicles have become so frequent. Women are dragged and abducted in the vehicles, gang raped for 2-3 hours while cruising on the capital roads without any fear of being caught.
The city truly lives up to its name – THE RAPE CITY OF INDIA.
Brilliantly written .
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