"Filthy RSS Male Chauvinist Mentality": Rahul Gandhi Slams BJP Lawmaker
New Delhi: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at a BJP MLA who said rapes can only be stopped if parents teach 'sanskar' or values to their daughters amid nationwide outrage over the alleged gang rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras.
"This is the filthy RSS male chauvinist mentality at work. Men do the raping but women need to be taught good values," he said, commenting on the BJP leader Surendra Singh's remark on Twitter. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS is the ideological mentor of the BJP which governs UP and at the centre.
With his party's government under searing criticism over the savage assault on the woman and the administration's actions since, the BJP leader had said, "It's the duty of all mothers and fathers to imbibe good values in their daughters and bring them up in cultured environments."
"I am a teacher along with being an MLA. Such incidents (like rape) can be stopped only with sanskar not with shasan (governance) or talwar (referring to sword or might)," Surendra Singh said had on Saturday, when asked about the crimes against women in the state.
The 20-year-old woman, from the long-oppressed Dalit community, was attacked on September 14 in a field near her home in Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh, allegedly by a group of so-called "upper caste" men. Her death on Tuesday sparked nationwide protests.
Four suspects were soon arrested but the Yogi Adityanath government faced criticism for forcibly cremating the woman's body on the same night at 2:30 am in a dark field while her parents were locked up in an apparent effort to curb a backlash.
The Congress has hammered the BJP over the incident with Rahul Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, also a Congress leader, visiting the family on Saturday evening following a dramatic standoff with cops who had laid a siege in the area, blocking politicians and the media.
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Bridge portion collapses on Jammu outskirts; 3-4 labourers feared trapped, 1 rescued
Jammu (PTI): A portion of a small bridge collapsed in the Bantalab area on the outskirts of Jammu city on Friday, trapping at least three to four labourers under the debris, while one injured worker was rescued, official sources said.
Authorities have closed the road link following the collapse of the portion of the bridge.
The incident occurred when labourers were carrying out repair work on a retaining wall near the bridge that was damaged in last year's flash floods, the sources said.
According to the sources, a section of the bridge suddenly gave way, burying workers engaged at the site under the rubble.
Police, Army and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams launched rescue operations to extricate those buried under the debris. They pulled out one injured labourer and shifted him to a hospital, the sources said.
Family members of the labourers present at the site said around six workers engaged at the site at the time of the incident came under the debris when the structure collapsed. The family members said while two of the labourers managed to escape, four got trapped.
The sources said those trapped included the husband of a woman labourer, a mason, an unmarried labourer and a relative of the contractor.
There was no official confirmation on the exact number of persons trapped under the debris till the filing of this report.
The rescue operations are ongoing.
