New Delhi : Abandoned by her family, a rape victim who is eight months pregnant has moved the Delhi High Court seeking medical and financial assistance to give birth to her baby as she is too poor to bear the expenses.
The court issued notice to the central and Delhi governments Friday on the plea of the 19-year-old, who also sought government care for her baby till the age of 18.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher asked union women and child development ministry and the Delhi government to file their responses by June 6.
Lawyer Nishit Kush, appearing for the woman, told the court: “The victim is in a pitiable financial condition and cannot meet the expenses for delivery.”
The petition said that the woman was raped by her neighbour Sanjay Choudhury in October last year and threatened not to disclose the incident to anyone otherwise he would kill her brother.
“The accused raped the woman and clicked her nude photographs with his mobile phone and threatened her that he will make the pictures public,” the petition added.
During a medical check March 3, it was found that the woman was five-month pregnant, it said.
The woman lodged a complaint in east Delhi’s Mansarovar Park area March 4 but the accused was still to be arrested, the lawyer said.
The lawyer said she earlier moved the court to terminate her pregnancy but doctors opined against it.
In her petition, the woman said: “The stigma attached to delivering a child without marriage causes grave mental injury to me coupled with financial scarcity.”
“To carry a child in the womb as a result of conception through rape is not only extremely traumatic but also humiliating,” she said.