Does it take an incident of such nature to change system,asks man who alerted cops

Kumar and his colleague Surender Singh,who later deposed before the court as principal witnesses in the December 16 gangrape case as the first public responders to the incident,reached the spot at 10.02 pm that night.

“I saw men and women standing around the girl and the boy. They were bleeding. She was lying down,crouched. The friend was sitting against a bush by a tree. I took off my sweater and gave it to the girl and my shirt,to the boy. I asked the boy what had happened and he told me everything…,” Kumar said.

At 10.05 pm,Kumar called the control room of the toll plaza from his walkie-talkie and told them to make a PCR call. At 10.06 pm,the control room made a call to the Delhi Police control room. “Still,there was no help in sight. I asked Surender to stand by the victims,while I ran across to Hotel 37 across the road from where I got a bedsheet and a bottle of water,” Kumar said,who served in the army between 1983 and 2002 in 2 Rajputana Rifles.

Kumar tore the bedsheet in half. He wrapped the girl in one half. It was then that Kumar realised the extent of her injuries. “My hands became bloodied. The girl was bleeding profusely. The bedsheet immediately turned red. I have fought in the Kargil War and have seen bodies but I had never come across something so distressing,” he said.