Anti-rape protests continue in Delhi

New Delhi (IANS): Protests continued on Tuesday in the national capital over the rape and brutal assault of a five-year-old girl in Delhi, as activists demanded the resignation of Delhi's Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar and sought better safety for women.

Demonstrations were staged outside the police headquarters in central Delhi, All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences in south Delhi, where the girl is undergoing treatment, and at Jantar Mantar where a group of protestors has been holding vigil since the December 16, 2012, gang-rape in a bus.

"We want the police commissioner to resign, there are many honest police officers, let them work," said one protestor outside the police headquarters. Vikas Tyagi, member of citizen's group '16 December Kranti', which has been protesting since the gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus and her death in December 2012, said they would keep the agitation going on.

"We started at Jantar Mantar in December, and we have been sitting since then. We will continue this agitation till women are safe," he said.

Tyagi added that a makeshift camp of the group at Jantar Mantar, a 19th century masonry observatory on the edge of the posh Connaught Place commercial district, was dismantled by police after the recent rape of the five-year-old girl in east Delhi. "They dismantled the camp after the child's rape, but we have reconstructed our camp and the agitation will continue," he said. The east Delhi girl was reported missing April 15 from Gandhi Nagar. She was found April 17 after her mother heard cries for help from a locked room in their own building.

Two accused, Pradeep and Manoj Kumar, have been arrested from Bihar for the child's brutalisation.