Lucknow, Feb 8 (IANS) Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi spent Monday meeting three victims of sexual assault, including a young girl with deep gashes and half an ear chopped off in a brutal attack for resisting rape.
He first met a 17-year-old Dalit girl, allegedly raped and kept in captivity by Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi and his henchmen.
Dwivedi, who is now behind bars, had got her jailed on false theft charges.
Gandhi spent 15-20 minutes with the girl, who was released from jail last month on Chief Minister Mayawati's intervention and who has said she wants to kill the BSP legislator "with my own hands".
Gandhi, who has been visiting Dalit homes across the country in a bid to enhance support for the party at the grassroots level, had a glass of milk at the victim's home in the village, officials said.
He later went to Kanpur in the afternoon to meet another 17-year-old minor, undergoing treatment at the GSVM medical college here after being attacked brutally for resisting gangrape by three young men belonging to her native village, Udauli, in Fatehpur district, about 130 km from Lucknow.
Gandhi also announced financial assistance of Rs.1 lakh. The money was handed over later in the evening by state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi.
Since the minor girl was partially sedated, Gandhi spoke at length to her father and assured him of "every kind of help that the girl might require".
He also praised the girl for her bravery in fighting back the rapists, who eventually managed to disfigure her face and arms apart from nearly chopping off one of her ears before abandoning her on the outskirts of the village.
The girl was Sunday admitted to a Kanpur hospital where a team of orthopaedic and plastic surgeons spent hours Sunday carrying out several rounds of surgery to restore her half-chopped ear, badly smashed fingers and deep gashes on the face.
Gandhi spent about 15 minutes with the family and the doctors attending on the victim.
"He even offered to get my daughter treated in Delhi, but I told him that the Uttar Pradesh government was providing free treatment at the medical college orthopaedic and plastic surgeons carried out several sounds of surgery to restore her deep gashes caused by an axe with which she was attacked," the father told reporters after Gandhi's departure.
After his Kanpur visit, Gandhi flew down to Sultanpur to meet the third rape victim, receiving treatment at the local district hospital.
Narrating her story, the woman told the Congress leader that she was gang-raped by four people Jan 31, but neither the local police nor the hospital authorities had cared to even get the medical examination report so far.
Consequently, the culprits were still at large.
Taking serious note of the issue, Gandhi not only pulled up the hospital authorities, but also directed the district magistrate to ensure that her medical report was obtained and put on her case file, so that stern action could be initiated against the culprits.