New Delhi: A 15-year-old girl was brutally gang raped, tortured and murdered; a 22-year-old woman was assaulted inside a moving vehicle by four men; and a priest’s 15-year-old daughter was abducted, gang-raped and killed — all in the span of a few days in India.
The brutality of the crimes in northern India has created shock waves even in a region with a grim record of violence against women.
On January 12, the body of a 15-year-old dalit girl from Kurukshetra, Haryana, was found near Jind district. The teenager was gang raped and her body brutalised by her assailants, who inserted a foreign object into her private parts, which caused massive internal injuries, before dumping a body in a stream. The post mortem revealed her lungs had been ruptured, suggesting someone might have sat on her chest.
Police are in pursuit a group of suspects. “At least four men are suspected to be behind the crime,” said district police chief Abhishek Garg.
“A massive search is under way to arrest the perpetrators”, he added.
Just hours after the grisly discovery, police in Panipat district on Saturday found the body of a 12-year-old girl in a pond.
Panipat police chief Rahul Sharma told AFP that two men, both neighbours of the victim, had been arrested over the crime.
Both had confessed to luring the girl to their house before raping and killing her, Sharma said.
The case was a chilling reminder of the Nirbhaya gang rape incident that shook the conscience of the entire nation in 2012. It had led to a public outcry, including widespread protests both in India and abroad. Shaken by the intensity of protests, the government was forced to amend criminal law by providing for stringent punishments against the perpetrators of sexual assaults.
But five years after the horrific attack that sparked outrage, India has made little progress on sexual assault. According to the National Crimes Records Bureau, “Assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty” constitutes the second-most reported crime against women.
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A police officer in Delhi’s east zone admitted, “The rise in crimes is linked to poor policing. We have one policeman for every 1000 persons, which is the lowest police-to-public ratio across the world. With a shortage of over 500,000 police personnel, how can we be expected to handle sexual crimes?”
Sehba Farooqui, Vice-President, All India Democratic Women’s Association, New Delhi, agreed that nothing had changed on the ground. “The law was amended, but we do not see its implementation. Changing the definition [of the law] will not make a difference. There’s a need to sensitise the concerned authorities. The police continue to believe that a woman who ventures out in the night invites trouble.”
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“On top of that, we find political leaders making atrocious statements on women’s clothing. This sends wrong message to the society and imply that such incidents are justified. The government bans airing of commercials on condoms during the day, but have different criteria on women being shown in sensuous postures selling motorbikes or shaving creams. So as long as women continue to be treated as a commodity, nothing will change,” the activist asserted.
Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh or any other state, the scenario remains the same throughout the country. On January 13, a 22-year-old woman returning from work at 6.30 in the evening, was forcibly kidnapped and gang-raped by four men in a moving car for nearly two hours in Faridabad, Haryana. The assailants later dumped her near Ballabhgarh.
Delhi University student Ikshula summed up the plight of women in the city, “Not a single day passes when you don’t hear lewd comments — whether travelling by metro, standing at a bus bay or waiting for a cab. And it happens irrespective of you being alone or with someone. Since I don’t feel safe in the city even during the day, the question of venturing out in the night does not arise. The change in law has not made a difference to society’s outlook towards women.”
- With inputs from AFP
Trail of horror
India’s record on sexual violence remains atrociously high despite authorities vowing to stamp out the scourge. But even in a region with a grim record of violence against women, the brutality of the recent crimes in Haryana, a deeply conservative state in northern India, has created shockwaves.
December 2012
The fatal gang-rape sparked mass protests across India and saw the introduction of tough penalties for offenders and accelerated trials through court. Of the six rapists, one was juvenile who was sentenced for three years at a probation home.
One of the prime accused, Ram Singh, was found hanging in his cell at Delhi’s Tihar jail three months after his arrest. The other four convicts were sentenced to death in 2013 by the Delhi High Court. That sentence was upheld by the Indian Supreme Court in May 2017, but the review petition of the convicts is yet to be heard.
January 2018
1 Kurukshetra, Haryana: The disfigured body of a 15-yearold girl was found dumped in a stream last week. The girl had sustained terrible internal injuries and her liver and lungs were found ruptured, suggesting the attackers used a blunt object during the attack.
2 Faridabad, Haryana: A 22-year-old woman returning home from work was kidnapped and gang-raped in a moving car for nearly two hours allegedly by four unidentified men, who later dumped her near Ballabhgarh last week. No arrests have been made so far.
3 Panipat, Haryana: The mutilated body of a 11-year-old girl was found in a village pond. She was allegedly kidnapped by her neighbours when she left her house to throw garbage in the village dump. She was raped and strangled, police said.
4 Hisar, Haryana: A six-yearold girl was raped and killed after being tortured with a stick. - Compiled from agencies
