With no let up in the ongoing protests against the gang-rape of the photojournalist, the city BJP activists on Saturday staged a dharna outside the Boiwada court where one of the arrested accused was produced earlier in the day, even as a delegation of female journalists met Governor K Sankaranarayanan and demanded steps for enhancement of security for women in the metropolis.
As the first of the five accused in the gang-rape case, Chand Hussain Abdul Shaikh, who was arrested on Friday morning, was produced before the Boiwada court, scores of the city BJP activists – including a large number of women – demonstrated at the court’s entrance, where they raised slogans against the State Government for the breakdown of law and order in the State in general and Mumbai in particular.
Saturday was the second day when the BJP activists held demonstrations against the gang-rape of a photojournalist working for an English magazine on the Shakti Mill compound on Thursday evening. In a related development, Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shellar warned the Congress-led DF Government that if it did not arrest all the five wanted accused in the gang-rape case during the next 24 hours, his party activists would stage demonstrations in front of each of the ruling alliance MlAs.
Meanwhile, a delegation of 15 women journalists representing the print and electronic media called on the Governor and sought his intervention on the need for increased security for women in Mumbai in the backdrop of the sexual assault on a woman photojournalist in Mumbai. The journalists narrated to the Governor instances of harassment faced by women while travelling alone on streets and in suburban trains.
On his part, Sankaranarayanan assured the women journalists that he would take up the issue of safety of women in the State, with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. He also promised that he would take up the issue of enhancing the safety of women on suburban trains with Union Railway Minister. “We have strong laws to protect the life and liberty of citizens; what we need is effective implementation of the laws,” the Governor said.