JOIN US3 yrs on, Munirka still lives in fear and infamy
At 9:30 pm on December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapist and her friend boarded a chartered bus at Munirka here. What followed later shook the entire nation, and has in fact left the people who live nearby scarred to this day.
Though the police presence has increased, the incident has left them in abject fear. On Tuesday, three cops were deployed in the area around the bus-stand to monitor any unusual incident.
“After the 2012 incident, the area has become very sensitive. There is police presence in this whole stretch till IIT,” said head constable Ram Swarup, who maintains vigil from 12pm to 1am. John Cyril, who owns a mattress shop near the bus stop, said since then, he has not seen any girl take a chartered bus.
Kumkum Kumari, who stays nearby, said the incident at a place so close to her house has shaken her family. “Earlier we used to go for a walk after dinner. Now we don’t go out much. There is so much fear that even in the morning I come to leave my daughter till the school bus,” said Kumkum.
She narrated an incident from two weeks ago to highlight that her concerns are genuine. “Around 6pm, two girls were waiting for a bus, when some drunkards started passing comments and them and then started molesting them. The girls were terrified and no one came forward to help them. The policemen were some metres away, trying to break a fight between two groups. The boys ran away when they saw the cops coming,” she said.
Budharam, who has been running a makeshift shop near the bus stand since 22 years said even men don’t feel safe after the incident.
“Despite the police presence, the area sees a lot of incidents where men in inebriated state create ruckus. How much can the policemen do? These types of cases have made the area very infamous,” said Budharam. On the fateful day, the woman was brutally gang-raped by five men and a juvenile in the moving bus. The victim succumbed to the injuries on December 29, 2012.