Back in Delhi, victim's friend says will go to court whenever needed

The male friend of the 23-year-old woman who died after being gangraped and tortured on a moving bus last month has returned to Delhi from his hometown in Uttar Pradesh.

Prime witness in the case, the young man who was also assaulted and thrown out of the bus with the woman, told Newsline on Thursday that he will attend proceedings in court — the case is being heard in a fast track court at Saket — whenever he is needed there.

He had left for Gorakhpur, his hometown, after his friend died in a Singapore hospital on December 29, thirteen days after the assault on the bus.

"I came back a couple of days ago. I have been going to private hospitals to get opinion from senior doctors on my injuries. I haven't been asked to report for the trial yet. As the prime witness, I will go to court whenever I am needed," he said.

An engineer with a leading company, he had an X-ray taken at Safdarjung hospital on the night of December 16 after he and his friend were taken there by police. He said he had got an MRI done on his own almost ten days later. After consulting doctors at a private hospital for his knee injuries, he had returned to Gorakhpur to be with his family.

He said he had been advised an arthroscopy, a surgical procedure for diagnostic purposes in which an endoscope is inserted through a minor incision to examine joints to identify the precise nature of injuries. A senior doctor who examined him said he had not sustained any fractures in the knee. Since the MRI report was not conclusive, an arthroscopy was needed to identify the nature of injuries.

On Thursday, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit called the gangrape incident a "warning bell" and said society must learn a lesson from the horrific episode.

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