Narwana (Haryana), Oct 9: The men behind the gang-rape of a Dalit girl who committed suicide in a village near this Haryana town should get the severest punishment, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said here Tuesday after meeting the victim's family.
"Main is tarah ki ghatna ki bharpoor ninda karti hoon. Doshi ko sakht se sakht saza milni chahiye (I criticise in the strongest terms these kind of incidents. The guilty should get the severest punishment)," Gandhi told journalists.
"We have democratic systems here. We have a judiciary. The law is in the hands of the judiciary and nobody else," the Congress chief said in Sachhakhera village in Jind district after meeting the family of the minor gang-rape victim who committed suicide last week.
She added that these kind of incidents should stop not just in Haryana but all over the country.
The victim, aged 16, who belonged to a poor, Dalit family, was allegedly gang-raped by two youths from her neighbourhood Saturday. She doused herself with kerosene and set herself on fire soon after the incident.
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who has so far been maintaining that "no accused would be spared", was present at the village along with state ministers and top civil and police officers during the visit of the Congress president to the village in Jind district. Gandhi was also accompanied by union minister Kumari Selja.
