Swati Maliwal, chief of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), began an indefinite hunger strike today to demand justice for the Hyderabad veterinarian who was gang-raped and killed by four truck drivers and their assistants. She was joined by hundreds of women at Jantar Mantar, barricaded by the Delhi police as they tried to stop them from protesting.
Maliwal had on Monday announced that she would begin her protest by 10 am today, but the police didn’t allow her, she tweeted.
“Police are not allowing us to sit at Jantar Mantar. Police barricaded the entire Jantar Mantar area the whole night and stopped us from putting up our tents, mike, and toilets. They are openly saying they will not allow us to sit on a hunger strike,” she wrote.
The DCW chief demanded to know if “women can even sit on a protest in this country. “What is this fear that the central government has? Do we really have a democracy?” her tweet read.
She wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that all rapists be hanged within six months of their conviction. She hasn’t received any response from the prime minister to the “hundreds of letters” she wrote to him as the chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, Maliwal claimed.
She has five key demands, and it is only after the centre has agreed to them that she will break her fast, she said. Her list includes, execution of Nirbhaya’s rapists, immediate deployment of 66,000 police personnel on Delhi streets and 45 fast-track courts in Delhi.
Amid outrage over crimes against children and women, protests were witnessed both inside and outside the Parliament on Monday. Samajwadi Party leader Jaya Bachchan demanded that the culprits in the Hyderabad veterinarian’s gang-rape and murder be “lynched” in public view.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu while convening the session said, “What happened in Hyderabad is a disgrace to the society. What is required is not a political will, but political bill and administrative skill.”
Protesters wearing black bands gathered at the Jantar Mantar on Monday to demand justice for the 26-year-old medical professional. They were shouting slogans and held placards that read “hang the culprits”.