In a chilling incident bearing disturbing similarities to the 2012 Nirbhaya case, a 28-year-old married woman was allegedly gang-raped inside a moving van in Faridabad for more than two hours before being thrown onto the road in the early hours of Tuesday. 

The incident occurred on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday when the woman was waiting for a vehicle to return home late at night. According to police, a van stopped and two men offered to drop her home, persuading her to get inside. Instead of heading towards her destination, the vehicle moved towards Gurgaon Road.

The woman was allegedly confined inside the van for nearly two-and-a-half hours, during which the accused repeatedly raped her. Despite her resistance and repeated pleas, the men continued the assault and threatened her to keep silent.

At around 3 am, the accused allegedly pushed the woman out of the moving van near Raja Chowk in SGM Nagar, leaving her with severe facial injuries and bleeding profusely on the roadside.

The survivor was rescued and taken to the hospital, while police have registered a case and launched a search operation to identify and arrest the accused and trace the van involved.

The brutality of the crime has drawn direct comparisons with the infamous Nirbhaya case of December 16, 2012. On that night, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang-raped inside a moving private bus in South Delhi between approximately 9.30 pm and 11 pm. After the assault, she and her male friend were brutally beaten and thrown naked onto the road near Munirka.

The victim, later known nationwide as “Nirbhaya,” succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012, at a hospital in Singapore. The case sparked massive nationwide protests and led to sweeping changes in India’s criminal laws relating to sexual assault.

More than a decade later, the Faridabad incident has revived painful memories of the same pattern of crime — sexual assault inside a moving vehicle followed by the victim being thrown out to die — raising serious questions about women’s safety despite stricter laws.