Protestors throng streets as Delhi turns crime capital

Delhi erupted in protest again today, after December last year, this time over the ghastly confinement and rape of a five-year-old child, with people staging demonstrations at various places in the capital, including the residences of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and the Delhi police headquarters, even as the police apprehended the culprit at his Bihar residence.

The Delhi police arrested the 22-year-old man accused of raping the five-year-old girl in the national capital in Chiknouta, his in-law's village, in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.

Activists belonging to Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, and also the BJP, CPM, CPI, youth organisations and other organisations protested outside Delhi police headquarters demanding justice for the victim and punishment to policemen who allegedly delayed help in locating the girl who went missing on 15 April.

Demonstrators tried to enter the police headquarters by breaking barricades but a heavy posse of security personnel stationed there prevented them.

Protests also erupted at All India Institute of Medical Sciences this morning in solidarity with the girl.

Holding up banners and shouting slogans against the government and police, protestors demanded that Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar resign, saying he "failed to tackle the rape crimes" in the city.

The police are reported to have slapped murder charges on the accused Manoj Kumar.

The accused, working as labourer in Delhi, had come to his native Bharphua village in Muzaffarpur district by train. He was traced after his mobile phone location was tracked, police said.

Kumar, who had married recently, was alone at the time of committing the crime as his wife had gone to her parent's place two days ago.

The girl was abducted and kept hostage for two days without food and water in a room on the ground floor of the building in east Delhi's Gandhi Nagar, in which the victim's family also stayed.

The girl was rescued when members of her family heard her screams on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, doctors attending to the victim at the AIIMS said the girl's condition was stable.

Briefing the media, medical superintendent at AIIMS Dr BK Sharma said the child is on IV fluids and is being closely monitored.

"We have constituted a team of eight doctors who are attending to her, she is under close monitoring," he said.

Sharma further said that the child's vital parameters are within normal limits and she is responding to antibiotics.

Doctors at the Swami Dayanand Hospital where the girl was admitted yesterday said the rape was so brutal that the rapist had thrust a bottle and pieces of candle into the child's private parts.