Hurriyet Daily News
written by AFP staff
Friday May 30, 2014
NEW DELHI - Indian police have arrested one man and are looking for four other suspects after two teenage girls were gang-raped and then hanged from a tree in a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, police said on Thursday.
The two cousins, who were from a low-caste Dalit community and aged 14 and 15, went missing from their village home in Uttar Pradesh's Budaun district when they went out to go to the toilet on Tuesday evening.
The following morning, villagers found the bodies of the two teenagers hanging from a mango tree in a nearby orchard.
"We have registered a case under various sections, including that of rape, and one of the accused has been taken into custody. There were five people involved, one has been arrested and we are looking for the others," Budaun's Superintendent of Police Man Singh Chouhan told reporters.
Chouhan said a post-mortem confirmed the two minors were raped and died from the hanging. DNA samples have been also been taken to help identity the perpetrators, he added.
The victim's families say the girls were gang-raped and then hanged by five men from the village. They allege that local police were shielding the attackers as they refused to take action when the girls were first reported missing.
It was only after angry villagers found the hanging corpses and took the bodies to a nearby highway and blocked it in protest, say the families, that police registered a case of rape and murder.
A case of conspiracy has also been registered against two constables, said Chouhan, adding that they had also been suspended.
Sex crimes against young girls and women are widespread in India, say activists, adding that females from poor, marginalised, low-caste communities are often the victims.
A report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights in April last year said 48,338 child rape cases were recorded in India from 2001 to 2011, and the annual number of reported cases had risen more than fourfold - 336 percent - over that period.
Women's rights experts and lawyers say rape victims also have to endure harsh treatment from an archaic, poorly funded and insensitive criminal justice system.
Police often try to dissuade victims from complaining and suggest a "compromise" between the victim and the perpetrator, largely because of their insensitivity to sex crimes, but also because police officials are rarely held accountable.
Public outrage over the fatal gang rape of a woman in New Delhi in December 2012 pushed the government into passing a tougher new law to punish sex crimes. This includes sentences of up to two years' jail for police and hospital authorities if they fail to register a complaint or treat a victim.
Reuters News
written by Sharat Pradhan
Friday May 30, 2014
LUCKNOW - New Home Minister Rajnath Singh weighed in on Friday in a grisly case in which two teenage girls were raped and hanged from a tree this week in Uttar Pradesh, as public anger and political controversy over the attack gain momentum.
The case is one of the first challenges for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his four-day-old government. It highlights the ongoing struggle to stem sexual violence in India, where a string of high-profile rapes has sparked nationwide protests and international criticism.
Singh asked the Uttar Pradesh government to submit a report on the attack, a ministry spokesman said.
Modi, a prolific Twitter user, has not yet commented on the killings in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and a key political battleground. Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP party swept 73 of the state's 80 parliamentary seats in its landslide general election victory.
The two cousins, from a low-caste community and aged 14 and 15, went missing from their home in a village in Budaun district on Tuesday evening when they went out to go to the toilet. The next morning, villagers found their bodies hanging from a mango tree in a nearby orchard.
Local police said a post-mortem confirmed that the girls, from the Dalit community, had been raped and died from the hanging. Three men - one a policeman - have been arrested over the attack and a search is under way for two other suspects.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has ordered that the case be handled by a fast-track court "to ensure that the guilty are brought to book without the usual procedural delay", his spokesman Navneet Sehgal said.
Another Dalit teenage girl was gang-raped and strangled in the constituency of Yadav's father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of the regional Samajwadi party, on Thursday night, police said.
Mulayam Singh Yadav provoked outrage during the election campaign by saying about the death penalty for some rape cases: "Boys commit mistakes. Will they be hanged for rape?"
Mayawati, an opposition leader in the state whose party enjoys widespread Dalit support, slammed the rape and hangings as evidence of the "jungle raj" that ran the state and failed to impose law and order.
A small crowd staged a protest against the killings outside the Uttar Pradesh state government's office in Delhi on Friday afternoon.
The poor state of women's safety in India has been under the spotlight since the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital Delhi in 2012, which led to the introduction of tougher rape laws.
This week's case underlined how women from lower castes were particularly vulnerable, human rights activists said.
"Members of dominant castes are known to use sexual violence against Dalit women and girls as a political tool for punishment, humiliation and assertion of power," Divya Iyer, at Amnesty International India, said in a statement.
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