Alleged presidential guard gang rape rattles India's military
Kalam and his presidential palace reacted strongly to the alleged assault, which occurred while Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was addressing his followers in the same Buddha Jayanti Park. "The president has expressed serious concern over the incident and has asked for tough measures to be taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur. "What has been committed is a terrible crime and the guilty shall be given appropriate punishment," the palace said, adding that Kalam, the supreme commander of the Indian armed forces, has called for a military probe. The defence ministry was stunned by the allegations involving the ceremonial unit, raised in 1773 by then English Viceroy Warren Hastings when India was a British colony. "The mood is very bad. The sword can fall on many," a source said of reports that the army was planning a revamp of the lance-carrying PBG which has been protecting Indian presidents since the country became a republic in 1950. "The very fact that the four soldiers were strolling unsupervised in a civilian park itself is a symptom of massive system failure and the PBG will have to explain that... maybe at a military enquiry," the source said. Police said the four detained PBG guards would be presented before the victim for an identity parade. "It is a high-profile case and we are conducting a thorough probe," said Joint Police Commissioner Maxwell Pereira, who three weeks ago found a dead woman in the presidential palace compound. "That woman was mentally-challenged but as she had no clothes on we registered a case of murder and there is a probe on as to how the body was in the estate," said Pereira, who is in charge of security of central New Delhi. Pereira rejected the label "rape garden" which some media haved given to Buddha Jayanti Park but conceded receiving complaints of sexual assaults in the forested parts of the park. He said rapes had been "few and far between" in the park but police would tighten security. Defence Minister George Fernandes ordered army chief General N.C. Vij to take the sternest of measures against the rape suspects if they were found guilty. Vij described the assault as a "blot" on the nation's defenders and pledged severe punishment if the accused were convicted. The assault coincided with Fernandes demanding a report on the suicide of a 15-year-old girl in northeastern Manipur state last month after she was also allegedly gang raped by soldiers. The Indian army does not publish figures of sexual offences by the military but human rights groups point to troubled Kashmir, alleging the army uses rape as an instrument to put down the Islamic insurgency. Thousands of troops are also battling tribal and separatist guerillas in six of India's seven northeastern states, where attacks such as the alleged rape by troops of the 15-year-old girl are often reported. pc/bp/bro India-crime-rape-military
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