Kathua, Unnao rape cases: Rahul Gandhi to hold midnight vigil

Congress president Rahul Gandhi will be part of a candlelight vigil at India Gate on Thursday midnight in the Capital to protest the Kathua and Unnao rape cases.

Asking people to join him for the vigil, Gandhi, on Twitter, had said, “Like millions of Indians my heart hurts tonight. India simply cannot continue to treat its women the way it does.”

Earlier on Thursday, Gandhi had described the rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua as "unimaginable brutality" that cannot go unpunished and wondered how anybody can seek to protect the culprits. He also lashed out at the politics being played over the crime. "How can anyone protect the culprits of such evil," he asked, adding that the violence against the child was a crime against humanity.

Eight-year-old Asifa was abducted, drugged, confined in a temple, gang raped and killed. She belonged to the nomadic Bakerwal tribe. The 60-year-old Sanji Ram is alleged to be the mastermind behind the conspiracy to drive nomads away from the area and the rape and murder of the child was part of it.

Besides the Kathua incident, in Unnao, a teenaged girl alleged that she was raped in June 2017 by the BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar and then she had to run from pillar to post to get an FIR lodged. The woman and her family attempted suicide outside Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence in Lucknow on Sunday over alleged police inaction.