Kotkhai-origin woman starts campaign in Oz for justice to rape victim

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 21

Moved by the recent rape-murder of a 16-year-old girl in Himachal Pradesh, a large number of people have joined hands in Australia and moved an online petition seeking justice for the victim.

Led by a Kotkhai-origin woman Ruchika Chauhan--the victim too belonged to this place--the group initiated its campaign on July 14.

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Besides justice for the minor, the activist want to draw the attention of the authorities concerned towards the growing drug abuse in Himachal, a menace that has largely gone unreported so far. The minor girl is also learnt to have been drugged before being raped and strangulated.

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So far, the petition has gathered over 6,000 participants. It has appealed to Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and other powerful decision makers to deliver justice and address the root cause of this incident --the rising tide of drug and alcohol abuse in Himachal.

"As a group, we are ethnic Himachalis from the Kotkhai region where the murdered girl is from. But it is not who we are, why we are doing this is important. We can no longer accept that incidents like this  'happen all the time' and that authorities have things 'under control'. Instead, it is our collective responsibility to influence society towards a better end. This petition seeks the right of the murdered girl's family, and of every family in the state to live freely under rule of law," says Ruchika.

The petitioner has been encouraging people to participate in the petition, also reaching via Facebook and Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/KotkhaiPetition and https://twitter.com/KotkhaiPetition