New Delhi:
The daughter of legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar said on Thursday in a video released for a global women's rights campaign that she had been sexually abused as a child by a family friend.
Anoushka Shankar, herself a famed sitar player who used to play with her late father, said she had decided to go public in support of the One Billion Rising campaign against violence against women.
She dedicated her message to the medical student who was gang-raped in a bus by six drunken men on December 16 in New Delhi, and later died in hospital from horrific injuries.
The crime sparked violent protests and a round of soul-searching in India about the treatment of women.
"As child, I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years in the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly," Shankar said in the message posted on YouTube from her home in London.
"Growing up like most women I know I suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other things like I didn't know how to deal with, I didn't know I could change," Shankar said.
"Enough is enough. I am rising. I am rising for (Delhi medical student) and women like her. I am rising with the women of my country," the US-born musician said.
Events marking the One Billion Rising campaign, timed to coincide with Saint Valentine's Day, are planned across New Delhi on Thursday, said Kamla Bhasin, a prominent women's activist leading the campaign in South Asia.
"From 10 am onwards our programmes have started in colleges and I am going with women taxi drivers to spread the word of equality because today's is the day of love," Bhasin said.
She said activists would sing, stage street plays, light candles and shout anti-violence slogans.
In Mumbai the events include a flash dance, a seaside "open drum circle" at sunset, demonstrations of solidarity and a protest against atrocities against women.
Delhi police have charged five of the suspects with rape and murder. The sixth is a minor and is being tried in a juvenile court.