After Congress MP Rahul Gandhi launched an attack on the Modi government for the cases of rape happening across the country, the BJP has launched a counted attack on him by raising the Sukanya Devi issue.
Today Rahul Gandhi said in Kerala that “India is known as a rape capital in the world”. He also said that the Modi government is responsible for the increasing cases of rape and violence in the country. Responding to this remark, the official Twitter handle of BJP Karnataka said, “Innocents Nirbhaya & Dr Priyanka have got justice, only SUKANYA DEVI is waiting for JUSTICE. Will you fight for Her Rahul?” They said that instead of shamelessly maligning India as rape capital of the world, Rahul Gandhi should have fought for capital punishment for rapists.
Hey juvenile @RahulGandhi,
Instead of shamelessly maligning India as rape capital of the World, you should have fought for capital punishment for Rapists.
Innocents Nirbhaya & Dr Priyanka have got justice, only SUKANYA DEVI is waiting for JUSTICE. Will you fight for Her Rahul? https://t.co/yoSdwsXEBa
— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) December 7, 2019
BJP leader and Karnataka Tourism Minister CT Ravi also raised the issue, saying that “majority of Rapists get punished one way or another, but the Rapist of Sukanya Devi is roaming around freely.” He asked why Rahul Gandhi is not fighting for Sukanya Devi. He also slammed the former Congress president for calling India as the rape capital, saying no true son of India will say that, and “only an outsider with a twisted mind can speak such nonsense.”
No true son of India will ever call it as the Rape Capital. Only an Outsider with a twisted mind can speak such nonsense.
Majority of Rapists get punished one way or another, but the Rapist of Sukanya Devi is roaming around freely.
Why isn’t @RahulGandhi fighting for Sukanya? https://t.co/YTDhqX5l2D
— C T Ravi ?? ಸಿ ಟಿ ರವಿ (@CTRavi_BJP) December 7, 2019
The Sukanya Devi case refers to an allegation that one woman named Sukanya Devi, daughter of a local Congress leader in UP, was raped by Rahul Gandhi and his friends in 2006 in Amethi. The allegation was initially raised by several bloggers, and it was said that the girl and her parents went missing after they met Sonia Gandhi to complained about the alleged incident.
The allegations said that Sukanya was the daughter of a congress worker named Balram Singh, and she was a big fan of Rahul Gandhi. It was alleged that when Rahul Gandhi was partying with his friends in Amethi guest house, she had gone there to meet him, where she was raped by Gandhi and his 7 friends, 2 of whom were from Britain and 2 other from Italy. Apparently she somehow escaped after the incident, and approached several people but nobody came forward to help. The allegations say that Sukanya Devi, her father Balram Singh and mother Sumitra Devi met Sonia Gandhi and Human Rights Commission, and after that the whole family went missing. It is also alleged that a videographer named Dhrupad and a cameraman from a news channel who had recorded the statement of Sukanya, also went missing after that.
The allegations were completely ignored by media, and only some social media users kept raising it. But when SP MLA Kishore Samrite raised it in 2011, media was forced to report it. Samrite had filed a case at the Allahabad High Court seeking a probe into the alleged rape and the vanishing of Sukanya wither her parents. The MLA had said that when went to the village, he had found the home of the family was abandoned and the neighbours were unaware about the family’s mysterious disappearance after going to Delhi.
Read: Rahul Gandhi trusted the Judiciary when it acquitted him of rape, why undermine it now?
But a probe by police on the orders of the court found no truth in the allegations. It had found that the address of family mentioned by Kishore Samrite didn’t exist. Moreover, another person named Gajendra Pal, acting as next friend of Balram and Sukanya had filed another petition in the court saying that Samrite had filed a false petition which was politically motivated.
The investigation had also found that Balram Singh had sold his house and moved to another place, and his wife and daughter’s names were wrongly mentioned in the blogs. His wife was Sushila Devi and their eldest daughter was Kirti Singh. They had informed that some persons claiming to be media had come to their house and showed them the photograph of Sukanya Devi, asking if she was their daughter. They had told them that this was a different woman and not their daughter.
After this the petitioner had alleged that Kirti Devi was a different woman, and she was planted in the case to derail it.
But the High Court had dismissed both the petitions, and both the petitioners, Kishore Samrite and Gajendra Pal, were asked to pay fines. Kishore was fined Rs 50 lakhs for filling a petition based on ‘falsehood’, out of which 25 lakhs was to be paid to Kirti Singh, 20 lakhs to Rahul Gandhi and 5 lakhs to the DGP of UP as a reward. On the other hand, Gajendra was fined 5 lakhs because he had no locus standi in the case as he had no relation with the family. The court had also slammed Gajendra Pal for dragging the family to the court despite the fact they didn’t lodge any complaint.
After this Kishore Samrite had approached the Supreme Court, but the apex court too had dismissed the allegations in 2012, and imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Samrite, while reducing the high court’s fine from Rs 50 lakhs to Rs 10 lakhs. The court had noted that there was “not even an iota of evidence” to show that the alleged incident had happened in 2006. Moreover, Samrite had did a U-turn during the SC hearing, saying that he had no personal knowledge of the case and he had lodged the petition on the instructions of SP leadership.
