Gangrape: what media concealed, VIPs revealed by exposing identity of victim's family to neighbours

New Delhi, Jan 1: Even as the entire media, including major news channels and newspapers, tried their best to conceal the identity of the gangrape victim and the location of her family's house in Delhi for the last two weeks, the sudden appearance of flocks of VIPs to her residence on Sunday morning, exposed her identity to the neighbourhood, which was in the dark till yesterday. The victim's family members are now having a hard time facing questions of how and what from inquisitive neighbours. Security personnel continued to be deployed during the day as several VIPs, including Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, visited the family. “I am tired... I have not stepped out of my room. Some VIPs came, but my father attended to them,” said the victim's brother. “Till now, we had managed to keep the news relatively secret, and the few media channels which came here were turned away by some neighbours close to us. But when we arrived with my sister's body early morning on Sunday, there was such extensive security deployment...” said the victim's brother, adding that the streets outside were now blocked with curious neighbours. “We cannot even step out of the house. At this point, who wants to face the questions?” he said. On Sunday, there was a stream of VIPs to the white decrepit house in the corner of a congested lane in southwest Delhi . There was shock and sorrow in the entire colony after the residents realised that the braveheart they had been reading about in the papers was their own perky neighbour. Unaware of the fact that the news on TV channels and reports in newspapers about a girl who was gang- raped in a moving bus was from their locality, the neighbours seemed “ surprised”. “ They never knew that my daughter suffered this trauma. We never returned home after the incident. The neighbours thought we were out of town. Today when we got her dead body home, they all came to know that it was my daughter the television and newspapers are talking about,” said the victim's father. “ We are finding it difficult to come out and answer their questions. They all have one question, ‘ how and what happened?' even though they know everything. However, they all are sympathetic and want to offer help but nothing is weighing this time because I have lost my child,” he said. There is no dearth of people coming in and wanting to meet the family ranging from VIPs, NGOs and commoners. Half of the residents in the locality are out to see the swanky cars and VIPs dropping in. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and BJP leader Vijendra Gupta visited the house. “ We were surprised why these VIPs are coming to our locality because otherwise they never turn up even in the worst cases of crimes and civic problems,” said one neighbour who didn't want to be named. “ We came to know only today that this girl was the one who died in a Singapore hospital. We have a lot of sympathy for the family as they lost such a courageous daughter. She was a very nice person and jolly natured. Most of the time she was in Dehradun because she was studying there but every time she came home she used to meet all of us,” she said. In the chaos, the family has not even managed to choose a picture of the victim to garland. A garland brought by somebody lies discarded in a corner. “It is too painful to look through her pictures,” said the father. The victim's family is slated to go to their native village in UP for at least ten days to carry out the post-funeral rites.