Brutality against women in Ujjain, Siddharthnagar 'blot on humanity': Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the brutality against women in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain and Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar is a “blot on humanity”, asserting that “propaganda-centric” governments have given birth to an insensitive system of which the biggest victims are women.

His remarks came after a scrap collector was raped by a man after he forced her to consume liquor in Ujjain’s Agar Naka area. In another incident, a woman in Siddharthnagar was allegedly sexually assaulted by the driver and helper of a private ambulance that she hired to transport her terminally ill husband home.

“The brutality against women in Ujjain and Siddharthnagar is a blot on humanity. The continuously increasing crimes against women and the attitude of the police administration towards the victim and her family is proof of the cruelty of the system and is a matter of serious concern for the country,” Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.

“Propaganda-centric governments have given birth to an insensitive system to create a false image of themselves, the biggest victims of which are women,” he said.

Gandhi said the time has come to make serious efforts towards the moral upliftment of the society for the safety of women — strict steps should be taken at every social, political and administrative level.

“Better citizens give birth to better systems, and better systems create a better society,” he added.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the incident of rape of a woman on the footpath in broad daylight in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, is extremely horrifying.

“Today the whole country is stunned as to where our society is heading? According to reports, people passing by were making videos instead of saving the woman. Humanity has been tarnished by such an incident on the holy land of Ujjain,” she said.

The police in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain have identified three to four suspects, who allegedly shot a video of a woman scrap collector’s rape and efforts were on to nab them, an official said on Friday.

The incident came to light after a video of the rape went viral on social media, following which the prime accused in the case was arrested, the police said.

In the Siddharthnagar incident, the woman’s husband was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Lucknow.

Due to financial constraints, she decided to take his discharge and take him home in a private ambulance on the evening of August 29, when while returning, the driver and helper allegedly harassed the woman, the police said.

According to her complaint, when she resisted their attempts, the driver stopped the ambulance in Basti district, approximately 150 kilometers from their destination, and forced her, her brother and her husband out of the vehicle.

The woman contacted the local police, who arranged for another ambulance to transport her husband to the Gorakhpur Medical College, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.