Rape Victim\'s Friend Details Attack and Delays in Getting Help

Manish Swarup/Associated Press Delhi police personnel outside the Saket court in Delhi, on Thursday, where charges were filed against the men accused of gang raping a 23-year-old woman in Delhi.

The male friend of the woman who died after being gang raped and sexually assaulted with an iron rod in Delhi described the attack they suffered for the first time publicly in an interview broadcast Friday.

The details of the vicious attack and its aftermath provided by the man paint a bleak picture of India's capital city, one in which the assailants had laid a carefully planned trap and neither citizens nor police officials nor doctors rushed to help a naked, bleeding couple who were left on the side of a highway.

From the time the two thrown from the moving bus in which they were attacked until they were taken to the hospital, two hours had elapsed, he told Zee News, an Indian news channel.

“We were without clothes” he said. “We tried to stop people passing by.” After 25 minutes someone called the police, he said. Then, after three police vans arrived, officers argued over who had jurisdiction over the case, he said. He had to carry his friend into the police vehicle, he said, after police refused because she was bleeding too much.

The man, whose name was disclosed in early reports from Zee News, but deleted in later reports, said the police did not take them to the close st hospital, but one further away. “Even at the hospital we were made to wait and I had to literally beg for clothes,” he said.

Delhi Police said they planned to sue Zee News for broadcasting the interview, Rajan Bhagat, Delhi Police spokesperson said. The case will be filed under Section 228 (A) of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with the disclosure of identity of victims of certain crimes, including rape.

In the interview, the man said that the attack itself was well planned. “Apart from the driver and helper, others behaved like they were passengers,” he said, until after they paid the 20 rupee fee and sat down. “Then they started teasing my friend and the same led to a brawl,” he said. “I beat three of them up but then the rest brought an iron rod and hit me. Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away,” he said.

Read the interview with Zee News here.