Delhi 5-yr-old stable, talks to parents

Anti-rape protesters stage fresh rallies sparked by the brutal rape of an abducted five-year-old Indian girl in New Delhi, as doctors say the victim is showing signs of "improvement".

The five-year-old girl who was brutally raped in the national capital is in "stable" condition after undergoing surgery, doctors said on Sunday.

"She is stable and is responding well to treatment," D.K. Sharma, medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told reporters.

"Her vital parameters are ok and she faces no threat to her life. She is alert and spoke to her parents and doctors," said Sharma, adding that she had "mild fever".

"The child is showing gradual recovery. She slept well during the night. She is responding well to anti-biotics."

He said the girl, raped by her 22-year-old neighbour, had undergone "colostomy" surgery. This is a procedure to create an alternative route for stool to pass.

Asked if the girl understood what she had undergone, the doctor said: "She was perhaps too young to understand what happened. I will not say she is scared, perhaps she is too young to understand the gravity of her condition," he said.

For the third consecutive day, Delhi on Sunday witnessed protests over the savage rape of a five-year-old girl in the city. Demanding the removal of Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar, students and women staged demonstrations at India Gate, the Police Headquarters and near the residences of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The student protesters demonstrated outside the Police Headquarters at ITO for nearly five hours blocking the main ITO junction. "We want the police officer who offered bribe to the father of the girl to be put behind bars," said a protester.

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Demonstrators also tried to march towards India Gate but were stopped by the police; prohibitory orders are in place in the area. Blocked by barricades, the students held a sit-in protest. They were later moved to ITO in police buses.

The few hundred protesters were much less in number than the thousands who had swamped India Gate and Rajpath last December following the rape of a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus, but their anger was palpable.

The Delhi Metro shut its Race Course Road station near the PM's residence after a request from the police.

The five-year-old girl, whose brutal rape has angered the city, is "stable" after undergoing surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Sunday. "Her vital parameters are ok and she faces no threat to her life. She is alert and spoke to her parents and doctors," said Dr DK Sharma, medical superintendent of AIIMS.

She was kidnapped on Monday and tortured and raped for three days, allegedly by her neighbour who is now in judicial custody. His wife said he should be hanged if found guilty. "If he has done something unethical, he should be hanged. How can he do this?" she said at her home in Muzaffarpur.

The Prime Minister stressed that people need to work together to defeat such depravity and that women's safety and security has to be the biggest concern for all.