Will there be any accountability? Rahul slams Amit Shah, UP govt over Noida bus rape

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attacked the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government over the gang-rape of a minor in a moving bus in Noida, saying there was little chance of accountability being fixed for the police under Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He said the incident showed how unsafe Delhi-NCR had become for women.

The remarks came after police said a 16-year-old girl was gang-raped by a bus conductor and driver in a sleeper bus travelling from Greater Noida to Delhi and was later abandoned near Kashmere Gate in Old Delhi. Police said both accused have been arrested and that the bus was moving when the crime took place on the night of August 4.

In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said, "Delhi-NCR has become so unsafe for women that a minor girl was gang-raped for 47 km in a sleeper bus from Greater Noida to Delhi." He said it was astonishing that neither the Delhi Police nor the Noida Police had any inkling of what was happening.

"This bus crossed the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, Delhi's Ring Road, the border – all of it – without being stopped even once at a single checkpoint. Curtains were drawn over the bus seats so no one could see what was happening inside. And the perpetrators had no fear of the administration whatsoever," he said.

Referring to the 2012 Nirbhaya case, Gandhi asked why rules for checking and monitoring such buses were still not being followed even after so many years and so many such incidents. "Those curtains weren't just drawn on that one bus – it is the result of curtains being drawn year after year by the government over the administration's failures, leaving women unable even to take a safe journey in the country's capital," he said.

He also asked how many more women and girls would have to go through this before the central and state governments fixed the system. "Will there be any accountability for the Delhi Police under Amit Shah, or the UP Police under Adityanath? Not a chance – this crime, too, will just have a curtain drawn over it," Gandhi said.

According to police, the Class 11 student from Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh left home after being scolded by her mother and boarded a bus for Noida Sector 63, where her cousin lives. She mistakenly got off at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida in heavy rain at around 9 pm and realised she was still about 25 km away from her cousin's place. As she looked for transport, a bus stopped near her and the conductor allegedly told her they were going to Sector 63 and would drop her there. Trusting him, she boarded the bus.

Police said the bus was not on regular passenger service that night. Investigators and the travel company operating the bus said it had been taken to a workshop in Surajpur in Greater Noida for repairs after developing a technical fault. The two accused picked up the bus from the workshop around 5 pm and began their journey around 9 pm.

They travelled from Surajpur to Pari Chowk, picked up the girl on the pretext of giving her a lift, and then drove towards Kashmere Gate. The girl alleged in her complaint that she was gang-raped on the way and later abandoned at Kashmere Gate, from where she took an auto-rickshaw to a police station.

In a video statement, DCP (North) Niharika Bhatt said Delhi Police registered an FIR and launched a search for the accused without going into any jurisdiction issue.