Unnao rape case: The ambulance covered a distance of 33 km in just 39 minutes in Lucknow
On Monday evening, one side of the six-laned Lohia Path in Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow, a road that passes very close to the residence of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, was emptied out by the Lucknow Police for a full hour between 6 and 7 pm. At this time this road sees peak traffic, but on Monday evening there was none.
The road was part of a complex transfer for the Unnao rape survivor from Lucknow's trauma centre to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences or AIIMS. The end-to-end transfer was achieved in less than three hours, courtesy green corridors or temporary emergency lanes on roads at both Lucknow and Delhi. Green corridors are mostly activated for organ transplants but doctors and policemen say this was an exception.
Videos shot by journalists on Lucknow's Lohia Path showed a police vehicle, its sirens blaring, leading the ambulance on the road, followed by three security vehicles. In Lucknow, the rape survivor's ambulance left the trauma center at the King George's Medical University at 6.24 pm on Monday evening. The ambulance was at the Lucknow airport at 7:03 pm, a record 39 minutes for a 33 km journey that would normally take well over an hour.
The Lucknow police that organised the green corridor says the ambulance passed through 22 major traffic intersections. 12 senior Lucknow police officers and 142 police constables ensured a traffic free passage for the girl along the 33 km route. The route for the girl's ambulance was not the shortest one, but the one with the best roads. From the Lucknow airport, the girl was flown to the Delhi airport in an air ambulance that was waiting for her.
The girl's air ambulance landed at Delhi's domestic airport shortly before 9 pm. A road ambulance carrying the girl left the airport at 9 pm and reached the AIIMS Trauma Centre in south Delhi at 9:18 pm, covering about 15 km in 18 minutes using a green corridor like the one created in Lucknow. Under normal circumstances, this journey would take at least 35 minutes, if not more.
A similar exercise was repeated for the rape survivor's lawyer on Tuesday morning - with identical results.
The 19-year-old rape survivor, who has accused expelled BJP lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar of raping her at his residence in 2017, was travelling with her advocate and two aunts on July 28 when their car was hit by a speeding truck in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli district. Two of her aunts - one of whom was a witness to the rape - died in the accident, which many claim was orchestrated by the politician and his brother - Atul - to get back at the rape survivor.