PM finally speaks, tells Home Minister Shinde to ensure safety of women in Delhi

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today directed Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to ensure sense of security in Delhi and see that incidents like last Sunday's gangrape do not recur.

The directive came when Shinde called Singh to brief him on the situation in the aftermath of the gangrape incident, sources said.

Shinde told the Prime Minister that he was personally monitoring the situation.

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Sources said the Prime Minister told Shinde that he should ensure a sense of security in the capital, whose law and order is the direct responsibility of the Home Minister.

Singh asked Shinde to take all measures to see that there is no recurrence of the incidents like the recent gangrape of 23-year-old girl who was also brutally assaulted by the six accused.

On Saturday, several rounds of teargas shells and water cannons were used as young students demanding justice for the 23- ear-old gangrape victim clashed with police at the Raisina Hill, the seat of power.

Repeated resort to firing of shells and water jets failed to dampen the spirit of several hundreds of young students, both girls and boys, as they tried to breach the police barricades to march towards towards Rashtrapati Bhavan for the second day protesting against the government and police "inaction".

Meanwhile, Akshay Thakur, the sixth accused in the gangrape case, has been taken to Delhi from Aurangabad in Bihar on a two-day transit remand by the Delhi Police.

Thakur was produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate Kaushalesh Kumar Singh last night, who granted transit remand to take him to Delhi.

The Delhi Police team then took him to Varanasi by road late in the night itself from where they had to take a flight to Delhi, Aurangabad Superintendent of Police, Pranav Kumar.

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