More than a year later, on Monday evening, the unsavoury reputation of this park, one of Delhi’s biggest, is back the headlines. On June 26 last year, two friends were attacked while on a walk at Aastha Kunj Park near Kalkaji temple. Three men exploited the same security lapses to gang-rape a 17-year-old girl between 7.30 and 8.30pm.
With no guards nearby to stop them, the two attackers escaped — and returned three days later to rob a jogger. This time, however, they were caught.
“The park is huge and it’s impossible to keep a vigil in each and every area. Handling young couples is a major problem that we face. They become aggressive when we ask them not to sit in isolated or poorly lit areas. Many of them accuse us of moral policing and threaten to file police complaints. All guards are armed only with a stick and a torch. Its occupants —two policemen — were seated inside the van. It was not clear if they were meant to be patrolling the area. “At night, there’s no light and even police personnel can’t go there for patrolling. We are trying to increase deployment but DDA has to fix their boundary walls and deploy more guards. Despite this, regular activity continued. Families with children were seen at the kids playing zone, while other visitors were using the open gym, or walking or running on tracks. Most people were unaware of the gang-rape. “The park is not only unsafe but also dirty. The pond has no water. At night, there’s no lights near the Iskon Temple entry side. Why would anyone come here at night? There are no guards, no police and so many entrances for them.”
In terms of police presence, one PCR van was stationed outside gate number 3. Some people also used the track between gate numbers 2 and 3 to cross over between Iskon Temple and the Kalkaji-Lotus Temples. Alok Kumar, 60, a resident of East of Kailash, pointed to one empty guard room which was being used to dump waste.
Because of the incident, by evening, however, several more officers, including joint commissioner of police (southern range) Vijay Kumar, were present in the area. Because it’s very easy for them, only criminals come here.
Sometimes, we also face violent responses from visitors,” said one of the guards said in the evening, adding that police patrolling is also done in the park. When asked about police presence, a senior officer said it was “impossible to man the entire park” because of its size and how dense it is.
