Anti-rape protesters staged fresh rallies yesterday sparked by the brutal rape of an abducted five-year-old Indian girl in New Delhi, as doctors said the victim was showing signs of “improvement.”
A team of doctors at New Delhi’s top government hospital are treating the child and officials said that she was in “stable condition.”
The attack on the five-year-old and the following public revulsion was reminiscent of the horrifying gangrape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in December last year, who died from her injuries.
That case led to weeks of protests and a national debate over the status of women in India, putting the spotlight on the high incidence of sexual violence.
The five-year-old victim was being treated for serious internal injuries sustained during a more than 40-hour ordeal, allegedly at the hands of a garment worker who was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of carrying out the attack.
“She is in stable condition and showing signs of improvement,” hospital medical superintendent D.K. Sharma told reporters.
“She is conscious and talking to her parents, doctors and nurses and it can be said there is no danger to her life now,” he added.
Indian newspapers highlighted the rape of the child on their front pages for the second day yesterday.
Demonstrators carrying flags and posters reached the city’s main police headquarters to protest, an Agence France-Presse photographer reported from the site.
Another group of protesters were outside the hospital where she is under round-the-clock observation, witnesses said.
The 22-year-old suspect, Manoj Kumar, was apprehended after he fled to his in-laws’ home in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
Police accused Kumar of repeatedly attacking the child inside a locked room after kidnapping her on Monday in New Delhi.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in