Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: On the anniversary of the December 16 Delhi gang-rape, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Monday said that Nirbhaya fund, set up for women`s safety, will be utilised soon.
Speaking a day after Aam Aadmi Party member Shazia Ilmi tweeted that it was a shame that the fund had remained unused even after a year of the brutal gang-rape incident, Shinde said the P Chidambaram-headed Finance Ministry has cleared the plans, paving the way for the utilisation of the Rs 1,000-crore Nirbhaya Fund.
Chidambaram had announced the setting up of the Nirbhaya Fund in memory of the young woman, who passed away at a Singapore hospital on December 29 last year, two weeks after she had been brutally gang-raped in a moving bus in the Indian capital.
As the media is not allowed to name a rape victim, the young woman who fought those who assaulted her on December 16 was referred to as "Nirbhaya" (fearless one) and "Damini" (lightning) by sections of the press.
