Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi looked after the family of 2012 Delhi gangrape victim Nirbhaya, supported them monetarily and emotionally and even helped her brother become a pilot, but had strictly told them to keep it all a secret, Badrinath Singh, Nirbhaya's father told news agency IANS.
Badrinath Singh said many people offered help initially but Gandhi stood by them throughout.
"The incident left a permanent scar but Gandhi came like an angel. Whatever the politics, he has been an angel to us," he said, adding that the expectant Congress President was doing it all on humanitarian basis and had asked them not to speak to the media on the matter.
Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi had on Wednesday told a tabloid that Gandhi regularly called her son. Asha also told Mail Today that apart from sponsoring her son’s higher education, Rahul's regular phone calls motivated him to achieve what he wanted.
The brother, who was 19 years old and a Class 12 student when his sister succumbed to grievous injuries inflicted by her rapists in 2012, completed his training from the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA), in Rai Bareli, Uttar Pradesh and is now all set to pilot a commercial plane.
"Rahul Gandhi was the one who counselled him and motivated Aman(name changed), elder of the two brothers of Nirbhaya, to achieve something good in life to support the family. After learning that he wanted to join the defence forces, Rahul asked him to pursue a pilot's training course after completion of school," Asha told Mail Today.
Asha told Mail Today that during Aman’s 18-month pilot's training course, he used to get regular updates about the Nirbhaya trial. "When he was studying, Rahul used to talk to him over the phone and taught him to adopt a 'never quit' attitude." she added.
On Wednesday, the Delhi Commission For Women (DCW) has asked Tihar jail authorities and deputy commissioner of police of south district to explain why the four convicts have not been hanged despite the Supreme Court upholding their death sentence.
The four convicts lodged in Tihar jail are Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31). A fifth accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail in March in 2013 and the sixth, a convicted juvenile, was sentenced three years of punishment in a reform home and released in 2015.
The parents of the deceased have complained to the women's panel that even after six months of the Supreme Court upholding the death sentence for the four convicts, who had brutally raped and killed their daughter, they have not yet been hanged.
(Inputs from PTI)
