Delhi rape victim's father says his daughter should become symbol for hope

The father of the 23 year old Delhi medical student, whose brutal gang-rape and murder by six men on a Delhi bus outraged the nation, said his daughter should be named and held up as symbol of courage and inspiration for other Indian rape survivors. 

     Indian people light candles in memory of a gang-rape victim in New Delhi

The Indian authorities have sought to keep his daughter's identity a secret since she died from her injuries 13 days after she was attacked as she and a friend travelled home from the cinema on a bus.

The men, including a 17 year old youth, took turns to rape her and beat her so badly with an iron rod that most of her intestines had to be removed.

The case provoked protests and violent clashes between demonstrators and police throughout India as she fought for her life, first in a government hospital in Delhi, and later in Singapore where she died 13 days after the attack.

Her fierce fight to survive, despite suffering serious brain injuries, a heart attack, horrific internal damage, and abdomen infections, marked a tipping point for campaigners who turned their anger on the government over its failure to stop a sharp increase in sexual violence against women throughout India.

She was hailed as 'India's daughter' and the 'brave heart' by the country's newspapers and television news channels but her identity has been kept shrouded behind Indian laws that prevent the naming or identification of rape victims.

One television news channel is already facing charges for identifying the victim's male friend, who was attacked with her.

The friend had told Zee News that their attackers had dumped him and the gang-rape victim naked on the road and that police officers who arrived at the scene had argued among themselves over what to do instead of rushing them to hospital.

He said officers had refused to lift the gang-rape victim, a physiotherapy graduate who was working as an intern at a local hospital, because her wounds were so extensive and he had to lift her into a police vehicle himself. No blanket or sheet was offered to cover them and he was forced to plead for covers when they arrived at the hospital two hours after they were thrown from the bus.

Delhi Police have strongly denied the claims and said they had arrived on the scene within eight minutes of receiving an emergency call and that the victim arrived at the city's Safdarjung Hospital 26 minutes later.
The victim's brother has also criticized members of the public for failing to help his sister and said her life may have been saved had she been rushed to hospital sooner.

But as the row continued over how members of the public and the police compounded her brutal ordeal, her father said it was time for her anonymity to be lifted and her identity to be revealed.

"My daughter didn't do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself. I am proud of her. Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived these attacks. They will find strength from my daughter," he said in an interview with the Sunday People.

Earlier he told The Daily Telegraph he wants a hospital to be built in his village and named after his daughter along with a road in the capital New Delhi.

"I have three [demands]: a hospital, a road named after my daughter in my village and also a road in Delhi in her memory, all the deficiencies in our village should be taken care of," he said.

He also called for a new rape law, in his daughter's name, to make juveniles equally liable as adults and subject to the death penalty.
Under current Indian law however his demands are illegal unless he gives his consent in writing in a letter to a government body or recognized welfare organization.

The law, section 228A of the colonial Indian Penal Code, which states that whoever published the name of a rape victim "shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years".
The law has been questioned by leading government minister Shashi Tharoor and was on Sunday night challenged by Brinda Karat, a veteran communist MP and one of India's foremost women's rights campaigners.

"If the victim wants to come out and say what happened to her, she has every right. In this case 228A does not apply and the government is totally wrong on this because the girl's father, in her absence, he has every right to say so. It is ridiculous and I totally support him," she said.
Leading Indian lawyer Gaurav Kanth said he believed the authorities had not interpreted the law correctly. "Where the victim has shown such immense courage by fighting for her life and recording her statement in a situation where she could barely speak, she should not remain an anonymous identity.

We must salute the girl and bring her identity in the open. The intent of section 228A of the Indian Penal Code is to protect the victim from social victimisation or ostracism in the society. But to hide her identity and to let her go in obscurity will not do justice to her soul and the cause which she represents now," he said.

Meanwhile, the mother of the youngest attacker, who is believed to be 17, said she had not seen her son since he left home to work as a child labourer in Delhi at the age of six. He had left their home in Badaun district, Uttar Pradesh, where he and his five siblings lived with their mentally-ill father in one of their village's poorest shacks, and worked as a waiter in an east Delhi restaurant.

She told the Indian Express she last heard from him five years ago and considered him "dead".

Two of the accused have asked to become state witnesses ahead of the trial which is set to begin on Monday.