Teen called her ‘sister’, lured her to bus: Sushma

Calling her "sister" and promising to drop her near her home, it was the juvenile among the six arrested who lured the 23-year-old woman to board the bus in Munirka before she was gangraped, tortured and thrown out of the bus with her badly beaten male friend on December 16.

This was disclosed on Monday by Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj at a condolence meeting called by the Delhi BJP.

Swaraj said there was need to complete proceedings in a rape case within six months of the incident and a rape-cum-murder convict sentenced to death should not be given the option of a mercy petition.

Early this morning, Swaraj and party colleague Arun Jaitley visited the south-west Delhi home of the woman who died in a Singapore hospital early Saturday. The family later left for Varanasi with her remains.

"I contemplated what was her fault that she met such a fate. I could come up with only one answer — she was a woman. These accused had stepped out of their homes with only one objective. It was to violate a woman's body. And it was the juvenile accused who enticed her into boarding the bus. He called her sister and told her they would drop her at her destination," Swaraj said.

Describing the 23-year-old as the "daughter of the nation", Swaraj, who was overcome with emotion, said: "I saw the house (where she lived). It is just about a room. The fact that she was able to finish a physiotherapy course despite so much poverty is amazing. It shows how ambitious, focused she was. I could think of nothing else on my way here from her home." Swaraj also urged the government to give the family "an MIG flat and a job for her brother".

She said the BJP would use the budget session of Parliament to debate on women-related bills. The gangrape incident, she alleged, highlighted that the administration was least committed to the safety of women.

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