Aussie teen stalked, raped, shot in India
By Lisa Davies
February 04, 2008 12:01am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
THE mother of a teenager shot by a stalker has asked Australians to pray for her youngest daughter as she fights for her life in an Indian hospital.
Lila Salter was shot three times by a man who had raped her at gunpoint just hours earlier, her mother, Susan Manning, told The Daily Telegraph.
Lila, who was born at Murwillumbah but has spent much of her life living with family in India, has reportedly known her attacker, Saurav Singh, for some years.
Singh, the nephew of a former minister in India's Uttar Pradesh state, was yesterday described as having "psychological problems".
Mrs Manning said Singh had arrived at the flat Lila shared with her older brothers in Vrindavan, near Agra, and begged to be allowed to see her to apologise for the previous night's incident.
Instead, he shot Lila three times before fatally shooting himself.
Lila, a Hare Krishna devotee, remained on life support yesterday as her mother and four of her siblings maintained a vigil at her hospital bed in New Delhi.
Mrs Manning said doctors had warned her Lila's gunshot wounds were so severe she was likely to be brain dead.
"Only an absolute miracle will give us a different verdict now," she said, begging Australians to pray for her daughter as her condition was "so very dire".
Lila's attacker had been stalking her for some time, she said.
"She didn't like him and she was trying to brush him off.
"We changed her phone number a couple of times and we've made complaints but there's so much corruption (in Vrindavan) it's difficult. We were afraid to do anything."
Mrs Manning said Lila was "a virginal girl" and denied suggestions by local police the pair had been in a relationship.
Lila's family had been planning to report the rape to authorities in New Delhi when the shooting occurred.
"We've made complaints (to local authorities) before, and they've done nothing," Mrs Manning said.
Mrs Manning, who runs a vegetarian restaurant on the Gold Coast as well as spending time in India, said the tragedy had devastated the family, who had done many years of charity work in India.
"We've embraced the culture here, we've been Hare Krishnas for 30 years, but the lawlessness is (almost unbearable)," she said.
Lila's older sister Cinti described her as "the most kind, sweetest person who had never done a bad thing in her life."
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