Varanasi (UP), Apr 11 (PTI) Mother of Varanasi gang rape survivor said on Friday that she wanted an audience with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand the harshest punishment for the accused.

PM Modi was in Varanasi for a brief visit to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for several projects in his parliamentary constituency.

  Upon landing in the morning, the PM received a detailed briefing about the gang rape case and asked officials to take the strictest possible action against those involved, according to an official statement.

“I wanted to meet our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and narrate my daughter’s trauma. I want the people who committed such a heinous crime with my daughter to be given the harshest punishment so that in future, everyone thinks a thousand times before subjecting any girl to such barbaric cruelty,” she told PTI over the phone.

She also said that PM Modi enquiring about the case shows that “Modi ji is concerned about us.” The victim’s mother also said that after the incident, her daughter hasn’t been keeping well.

“The trauma has cast a deep impact on her psyche. She is not keeping well,” the woman said, adding that the police have been “cooperating” with them.

Earlier in the day, Additional Commissioner of Police (Cantonment) Vidush Saxena said that the police arrested three more accused, taking the total number of arrests so far in the case to 12.

The police FIR mentions 23 accused, including 11 unnamed.

Raids are on to arrest the remaining accused in the case, police officials said.

Those arrested have been identified as Raj Vishwakarma, Sameer, Ayush, Sohail, Danish, Anmol, Sajid, Zahir, Imran, Jaib, Aman and Raj Khan.

As per the complaint, the victim was gang-raped by 23 people across multiple places between March 29 and April 4.  The survivor’s family filed the complaint on April 6, and a case was registered under sections 70(1) (gang rape), 74 (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 123 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 127(2) (wrongful confinement) and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). PTI COR MAN NAV AMJ AMJ AMJ