New Delhi, Jan 2 (IANS) The family of the Delhi gang-rape victim has no objection if her name is revealed, her younger brother said Wednesday. But the Congress party is not so sure.
“We have no objection to revealing her name,” the 23-year-old victim’s brother told IANS over telephone from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. The family has temporarily shifted to its village from Delhi.
“We also have no objection if the (revised anti-rape) law is named after her. It will be an honour for my sister,” the brother said, just four days after the physiotherapy intern died in a Singapore hospital Dec 29.
The victim’s father told a television channel that if a law was named after his daughter, “it will honour her courage”.
Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor tweeted Tuesday that the gang-rape victim should be named and honoured.
He recommended that the revised anti-rape law be named after her, if her parents have no objection.
The trainee physiotherapist was raped in a moving bus. She was robbed, stripped and then thrown out along with her friend on a cold Dec 16 night on the roadside.
As her condition worsened, she was flown to Singapore where she died.
The 20-year-old brother, who wants to be an engineer, said the family had got support from everyone in Ballia.
“We were not sure whether people in the village will come help us.
“But when we reached here, we found that everyone was with us. They are coming forward to help us… They are behaving as if they have lost their own daughter,” he added.
He said his late sister was “free willed” and “wanted to be independent”.
The family is conducting the last rites of the young woman who was cremated Dec 30 in Delhi, two weeks after her brutal rape and torture and shortly after the body arrived from Singapore.
Her ashes were immersed in the Ganga in Bihar Tuesday night.
The brother said their mother, who had been in shock and had to be rushed to hospital, was now “stable” and “taking some food”.
The Congress, however, snubbed Tharoor.
“It is his personal opinion. Since he is a part of the government, he should have given the suggestion to the government rather than making (a public) statement. The party forum is also open for giving suggestions,” Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi said.
“There is no practice in our country where (sections in) Indian Penal Code are named after individuals unlike in the US,” he said.
Tharoor’s suggestion drew a mixed response.
“I support Tharoor on naming the new law on rape after her real name or ‘Nirbyaya’,” former police officer Kiran Bedi said on Twitter.
Congress leader Manish Tewari asked people to wait till the panel formed to look into anti-rape laws gives its recommendations.
Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati said: “If the family agrees (to name the law after the victim), it can be done.”
