After Gang-Rape Outrage, Bulandshahr Police Says It Can't Receive Calls

New Delhi: The taxi driver, agonizing over his raped 14-year-old daughter and wife, kept calling the emergency police helpline - 100. He kept calling for 15 minutes, and then gave up trying. The phone either rang out or was busy. The battered family could do nothing but wait.

At 5 am, hours after the family had been attacked, the police finally arrived - a failing raised in the parliament where the crime provoked several angry speeches about law and order in Uttar Pradesh, where elections are to be held soon.

The gang-rape last week on a busy Uttar Pradesh highway just 40 miles from Delhi, and the inaction that followed, has with brute force reconvened attention on the recurring crimes against women in India's largest state.

The police in Bulandshahr, where the sexual assault was committed on Friday night, has prepared its defense. In writing, it has complained that the emergency helpline doesn't work. The complaint has been sent to BSNL, the state-run telecom that services the region.

Two phone lines reserved just to handle SOS calls do not ring at the main control room, the letter says, while the caller can hear the phone ringing and believes it's going unanswered. The letter also says two other lines are out of order.

Anees Ansari, the top cop in the area, refuted charges that the letter only underscores the state of utter disrepair of not phone lines but the police force.  

"Whatever the problems are, we are committed to doing our duty.  We are going to sort it (lawlessness) out. That much I assure you," he said.

Three men have now been arrested for the sexual crime in Bulandshahr; three suspects remain unfound. The women were dragged out of the car they were traveling in; the four men accompanying them have said that they were tied up with ropes to prevent them from intervening.