Sonia to CM: Ensure safety of women

Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday wrote to Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit about the gangrape of a 23-year-old woman on Sunday night. Sonia expressed concern over the "painful regularity" of such incidents in Delhi and assured support for measures to ensure safety of women in the Capital.

"It is a shame for all of us who are responsible for the security of our cities that a young woman can be raped in a moving bus in the capital of the country and flung on to the street," Sonia wrote in her letter to Shinde and urged him to sensitise the police and other agencies and take "immediate action to remedy the situation".

In her letter to Dikshit, Sonia said "we are all horrified" by the incident and that it is a "matter of shame that these incidents recur with painful regularity and that our daughters, sisters and mothers are unsafe in our capital".

"I would urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to undertake community action, to strengthen law and order, and to step up vigilance to protect women. There is an urgent need to demonstrate our sincerity and determination," she wrote.

The party condemned the incident and said it would not be allowed to pass as yet another statistic. The party was, however, non-committal on the demand for awarding death penalty to perpetrators of the ghastly crime, saying "death is a great luxury for people like them".

Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury said a delegation of women MPs from the party would meet Shinde, Dikshit, Delhi Police chief and Women & Child Development Minister to discuss safety of women.

HC assures action in gangrape case

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said it was looking into the gangrape of a 23-year-old woman, following a plea for a court-monitored probe by 25 women lawyers. "This is an unfortunate incident and strong signals must be sent to perpetrators...," Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said.

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