Dragged from protest, mocked by minister: Unnao rape survivor’s fresh ordeal

A day after the Unnao rape survivor and her mother were forcibly removed from a protest at Delhi’s India Gate, Uttar Pradesh minister OP Rajbhar on Wednesday laughed off the incident, triggering fresh outrage.

When asked by reporters about the survivor being driven out of the protest site, Rajbhar remarked, “But her home is in Unnao…”, before breaking into laughter. The survivor and her mother were protesting against the suspension of sentence and grant of bail to convict Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a former BJP MLA.

Tuesday evening after the incident, the survivor said the treatment had pushed her to the brink. “I wanted to kill myself then and there, but I stopped after thinking about my family,” she said. The survivor has since reached senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s residence in New Delhi and is also likely to meet Rahul Gandhi, sources said.

Earlier in the day, the survivor described the Delhi High Court’s decision to suspend Sengar’s jail term as “kaal (death)” for her family and said she would approach the Supreme Court against the order.

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court suspended Sengar’s life sentence in the 2017 kidnapping and rape case and granted him bail pending disposal of his appeal against the 2019 conviction by a trial court. The court, however, directed that Sengar must not enter within a five-kilometre radius of the survivor’s residence and must not threaten or contact the survivor or her mother.

The court said any violation of these conditions would lead to automatic cancellation of bail. Despite the relief granted in the rape case, Sengar will remain in jail as he is serving a separate 10-year sentence in another case, in which he has not been granted bail.

Reacting to the verdict, the survivor—who was a minor at the time of the crime—said security for her family members, lawyers and witnesses had already been withdrawn, and the court’s decision had intensified her fears. “If a convict gets bail in a case like this, how will the country’s daughters remain safe? For us, this decision is no less than ‘kaal’,” she told PTI, adding, “Those with money win, those without money lose.”