India: Protests After Woman Accusing Ruling Party Lawmaker of Rape Injured in Shady Accident

Protesters stepped up demands Tuesday for India’s far-right ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to sack a state lawmaker accused by a young woman of raping her, holding several demonstrations just days after the survivor was critically injured in a highway collision.

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Activists said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP  is protecting Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a legislator from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, whom the woman accused of gang rape in 2017.

The woman, her lawyer, and her aunt was in the car when a truck collided with the vehicle. The lawyer and the survivor are being currently treated in a hospital.  

“They were threatening us on a regular basis to withdraw the case. They came to our house and said that they will wipe out our family. So they did. There is no doubt about it that it was Sengar and his men who have done this to us,” the woman’s sister told local media. 

The victim’s aunts died in the Sunday accident, her uncle had been arrested by police previously, her father was beaten up by the brother of the accused and later died in police custody in 2018-all allegedly committed by the accused and his brother. 

A day after the accident, the state police booked Sengar, his brother and around 20 people for attempted murder and criminal conspiracy. 

“The woman was in shock, apart from the fracture in the leg and collar bone, besides head and chest injury. Hence we have shifted her to ventilator support. Her condition is critical but stable,” said Dr. Samir Misra, a doctor at the hospital she is being treated.

Dozens of opposition lawmakers protested outside India’s parliament, holding placards with slogans such as “India Ashamed #Unnao”, referring to the site of the crime. Elsewhere in the Indian capital, women and students’ groups also held protests.

“Whatever my aunt earned here and there, she shared with us. Now that she is gone, there is no one to do the actual running around for us when it comes to the case… What they are trying to do is make us beg. They want us left without any money and with nothing to eat… They are just trying to kill every support system that we have. However, we will fight,” the sister said in an interview. 

Modi who has repeatedly cited women’s issues as a priority for his government, including schemes to promote education and hygiene, has been silent on the case.