Dec 16 victim’s mother announces trust for rape survivors

New Delhi  :  The mother of the 23-year-old physiotherapist trainee who was brutally gang raped a year ago in the national capital, Monday announced a Nirbhaya-Jyoti Trust to help rape victims.

The parents of the young woman attended a function at Constitution Club to pay tributes to their daughter. Several politicians, including former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj and Bollywood actress Shabana Azmi attended.

“There would be a trust for rape victims. It will provide every kind of aid to them,” said the mother.

She said: “We are drafting a plan to establish the trust. This trust will also help acid attack victims.”

The dignitaries present on the occasion met the parents and consoled them. The mother broke down when she met Dikshit and Azmi.

All present on the occasion observed a two-minute silence in memory of the trainee physiotherapist.

On the occasion, Swaraj said: “I demand the government to give harsh punishment to the juvenile, who was the most brutal among all the accused.”

She said punishment should be given according to the crime, not on the basis of age of the criminal.

“Age should not be the factor while giving punishment. If a juvenile does a brutal crime, he should be treated like that,” she added.

Monday marked a year since the horrific gang rape in which the young woman was attacked by six people, including a juvenile, in a moving bus. She, along with her male friend, was stripped of clothes and left to die near the Delhi airport.

The woman died Dec 29, 2012, 13 days after the attack, after battling for life in a Singapore hospital where she was sent by the government as people came out on the streets of Delhi and elsewhere in the country in large numbers in protest.