Maliwal, surrounded by her supporters, broke her fast at around 2 pm with a glass of juice offered by children.
Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Chief Swati Maliwal broke her 10-day long hunger strike on Sunday after the Centre brought an Ordinance for life in jail or death penalty for those convicted of raping minor children below 12 years of age. Maliwal, surrounded by her supporters, broke her fast at around 2 pm with a glass of juice offered by children.
While Maliwal was about to break her fast, almost thousand people gathered at Rajpath to participate in the moment. While no big leagues from the Aam Admi Party (AAP) including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who had been supporting her strike all this while and Manish Sisodia reached the spot.
However, AAP leader and MLA Somnath Bharti could be spotted by her side. The supporters shouted slogans of "victory of truth".
Calling it a "historic victory" for independent India, the women's panel chief said, "Very few protests had achieved so much in such a less time. It is not the end of the fight and if the government will not be able to implement the law in three months, I will fight again."
Maliwal congratulated the people at large for the decision while thanking all volunteers and NGOs who supported her fast.
The hunger strike was prompted by a string of incidents of rapes of minor girls in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
"Every day little children were being raped brutally but there was a national discourse on it. Only later flagged by the media, the issue gained weight. I had even submitted 5 lakh letters written by the citizens to the Prime Minister, but all in vain. It was then that I decided to sit on a hunger strike. It was not a strategy as such, but people started joining the movement," said DCW chief, as she adressed people.
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