The last few months have seen a significant rise in crime cases against women in Maharashtra with severe brutality. Be it the Pune gang rape case, or the recent Mumbai Sakinaka rape case, it seems like the horrors of the heinous Nirbhaya rape case 2012 is being repeated in Maharashtra now. Concerns are being raised that Maharashtra is the new rape capital of India and the Uddhav government is to be blamed for a major contribution towards it. Once hailed as one of the safest states for women, Maharashtra’s government has turned a blind eye towards women safety and well-being in the state.
Recently, there has been a spate of gruesome and horrific rape cases in the state and in most cases, the perpetrators are roaming scot-free. The Sakinaka rape case is only one of the many such crimes that have been committed in the state of Maharashtra in the recent few days.
13-year-old girl abducted by a rickshaw driver and raped by 13 people
A 13-year-old girl was kidnapped from the Pune Railway station by an auto-rickshaw driver and gang-raped by at least 13 people for more than 48 hours at different locations in the city, earlier this month. The police arrested 14 people including the victim’s friend.
Sakinaka rape case
A 30-year-old woman was brutalised and raped in Mumbai’s Sakinaka area in Andheri East, Mumbai, late on the night of September 9th. The accused Mohan Chauhan raped the deceased victim and thrashed her up with a rod. He then inserted the rod inside her private parts, leaving her critically injured as per police reports.
The police found the victim lying unconscious bleeding profusely inside a stationary tempo at around 2:30 to 3:00 am at Khairani Road in the Sakinaka area, Mumbai.
6-year-old kidnapped from Pune footpath and raped mercilessly
Another incident involves sexual crime against a minor reported on September 10, when the 6-year-old minor was sleeping next to her parents on a footpath near a bus stand in the Pune railway station when she was abducted and raped by an auto-rickshaw driver.
After getting information from another auto-rickshaw driver who saw the suspect take the girl away in his rickshaw, the police rescued her.
12-year-old girl gang-raped by six people
The alleged gang rape of a 12-year-old girl, where she was held captive and was sexually assaulted by six people for more than two months. The gang-rape survivor was physically assaulted for more than two months at different places by the six accused of the last two and half months in the Rajgurunagar area.
The police arrested the alleged offenders Sonya Ghumatkar, Akash Sunil Shinde, Paresh Manik Dhamale, Avadhut Santosh Kanse, Sainath Muluk, Suraj Sunile Rode. According to the police, the perpetrators have confessed their crime.
Questions are being raised on women’s safety under the rule of the Shiv Sena led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra. People are enraged by the state’s misgovernance and regarding the safety of women in Maharashtra, the state has emboldened criminals to perpetrate such heinous atrocities without fear of being caught by the authorities, yet there is no huge media coverage on it.
We all saw what had happened in Kathua in 2018. A girl was sexually assaulted and murdered, and her corpse was thrown in the premises of a temple. Without a second thought, like vultures, liberals swooped down upon the town, demonising the entire religion and blaming the Central Government for the same as well.
Same liberals and media houses are shut on Maharashtra’s rape cases. This speaks volumes about the safety of women in the Uddhav led government’s rule in Maharashtra.