When every zone of India witnessed gender violence; two minors and a tourist raped, transgender assaulted

Kolkata: The gory murder of a four-year-old after rape in Haryana clubbed with the gang-rape of a Japanese tourist in Kullu screams about India not being a safe place for women. Add to that the repeat of #MeToo, where the director of IIM Rohtak was booked for sexual harassment and a high school girl being gang-raped in Patna Bihar. Making the news even grimmer for India’s international image with regards to women safety and gender violence case, is the suicide attempt of a transgender after being assaulted in Thane, Mumbai.

In the first case, the brutal rape and murder of a four-year-old in Faridabad, Haryana, the rapist, a 24-year-old Virendra alias Bholu, had been working for her father for nine years.

Given the fact that the girl knew him well, she didn’t raise an alarm when the accused took her to his house, where he raped and murdered her. Following which he dumped her body in a container and even accompanied her father when the family began searching for the girl. Virendra was a married man, but his wife has not been living with him for the past two years.

It was only when someone informed the father that the girl had last been seen with Virendra that they went to search at Virendra’s place. On reaching the accused’s mother didn’t open the door and even switched off the light when the search was on. After much search, the girl’s dead body was recovered from a container.

Following which, the mother of the kid demanded death penalty for Virendra. “He should be hanged till dead. He has so brutally murdered my daughter. It should not be happen with anyone else,” pleaded the mother.

The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data reveals that in 96 percent rape cases, victims remain known to accused.

While in Kullu, according to an ANI news report, a Japanese tourist was raped by a taxi driver. “On the complaint of the tourist, the taxi driver has been arrested and foreigner has been sent for a medical test,” said Shalini Agnihotri, Superintendent of Police, Kullu.

Again in Haryana, Dheeraj Sharma, director, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), has been booked on charges of sexually harassing a former assistant professor of the institute.

The victim’s husband has alleged that since she had joined IIM, Rohtak, the director had been harassing her. He maintained that she had been pressurized to withdraw her complaint, following which she was unceremoniously terminated from her job.

While Sharma is yet to make a comment on the charges slapped on him, the institute has issued a statement that the victim, was on probation and had been sacked because of poor performance. And that she was doing so to dampen the institute’s reputation.

Moving eastward, in Patna, six youth have been arrested on Saturday for allegedly gang raping a Class XII student. The 17-year-old girl had been invited to a lodge by a boy, whom she had recently befriended, on pretext of his birthday celebration. Ritesh, the prime accused in this was the first to rape her, following which his friends raped her. However, post arrest, Ritesh has claimed that he had been beaten and forced to rape the girl following which his friend raped her.

The girl, a resident of Muzaffarpur, wanted to end her life after the incident but was rescued by some social welfare organization, following which she has resolved to fight back.

In another case, this time in Mumbai, a transgender attempted suicide, on June 1, after being assaulted by MNS workers. Few days back, three transgenders had been assaulted by MNS workers for allegedly doing sex work. The neighbors of the transgender said that she was upset and depressed as the assault of the video had gone viral.

The 23-year-old transgender also claimed that she was not into sex works and was working as a social activist, for Akhil Kinnar Association.

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