Opposition parties on Monday demanded that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav resign after the police failed to crack the case of five men raping a woman and her teenage daughter in Bulandshahr city, off the Delhi-Kanpur Highway. With the Assembly elections scheduled in Uttar Pradesh for next year, every party – from the Congress to Bahujan Samaj Party – took the case as an opportunity to target the ruling Samajwadi Party government.

BSP chief Mayawati demanded an explanation from Yadav, saying, "If you can't manage UP, then resign as chief minister on moral grounds." Sheila Dikshit, the Congress chief ministerial candidate for next year's state election, said, "The incident signals that the law and order situation in UP is in bad shape, and the common people do not feel safe in the state."

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also expressed his shock at the incident and demanded stern and quick action. The general secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party’s state unit Vijay Bahadur Pathak also made similar allegations. The Ministry of Home Affairs has sought a report on the Bulandshahr incident from the Uttar Pradesh government, ANI reported.

Earlier, the state government had suspended seven top police officers from Bulandshahr for being lax about the case. The Uttar Pradesh police also arrested three people and detained 12 others. All three accused have been sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

The incident took place when the family was travelling to Shahjahanpur to attend a relative's funeral and had set off from Sector 68 at midnight. The men allegedly surrounded their car and then forced all of them into a field nearby. There, they assaulted the woman and the 15-year-old girl. The gang carried out the attack barely 100 meters from a police post, NDTV reported. However, the police allegedly took hours to reach the spot.