India : 6 arrested in new gang-rape case

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6 arrested in new India gang-rape case
13/01/2013

Six men have been held over the rape of a passenger on a coach in northern India, police said on Sunday, just weeks after the gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi sparked nationwide protests.

"Six men have been arrested on allegations of having raped a 29-year-old woman... after forcibly taking her to an unknown location on the night of January 11," local police officer Raj Jeet Singh said.

bangkokpost.com

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Six arrested in new India bus gang-rape case
Posted 1 hour 42 minutes ago

Indian authorities say six men have been arrested over the rape of a passenger on a bus, in case disturbingly similar to the gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi that sparked nationwide protests.

The victim had boarded the service to her in-laws' home in the northern state of Punjab when she was abducted on Friday and driven to a district bordering the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, local police officer Raj Jeet Singh said.

Five men joined the driver and conductor, who had taken her by motorbike to an unknown address, and took turns to rape the victim before dropping her off near her in-laws' village on Saturday morning, Mr Singh said.

"Six men have been arrested on allegations of having raped a 29-year-old woman ... after forcibly taking her to an unknown location on the night of January 11," the policeman told AFP, adding that a seventh suspect was being hunted.

"The lady, after being kidnapped, was raped brutally throughout the night by the seven accused.

"After raping the victim throughout the night, one of the accused dropped her near her in-laws' house the next morning where she narrated the whole incident to her two sisters-in-law."

He said the extent of her injuries had yet to be established.

The attack is disturbingly similar to the December 16 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi, where five men are on trial in a case that has fuelled anger across India over the treatment of women.

Partap Singh Bajwa, a local Congress Party politician, blamed the police for not enforcing stringent checks on buses operating in the state.

"It all happened due to laxity of police as they never bother to check out the buses moving on national highways during night time," Mr Bajwa told AFP.

Protesters across India have called for the police to be more vigilant and sensitive to the growing incidence of sexual assault against women, after details emerged of the New Delhi attack.

Police and prosecutors have outlined how the alleged rapists picked up the student and her male companion in a school bus which they had taken for a joyride after drinking heavily.

The bus would have had to cross numerous police checkpoints at that time of night but at no stage was the vehicle pulled over by officers.

After getting into an argument with the woman's male companion, the group allegedly beat him up and raped the victim in the back of the bus while driving around Delhi for some 45 minutes.

They also assaulted the woman with a metal bar, leaving her with severe intestinal injuries, before hurling her out of the vehicle.

She died in a Singapore hospital 13 days after the attack.

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[Bangyai]

It's a great pity that someone had to be brutally murdered before this sort of barbarism become topical enough to make the mainstream news. A couple of months back and nobody would have heard of this case , much less raised an eyebrow.

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India police named victim of gang-rape, claim she was mentally ill
Francis Elliott
January 14, 2013


India police present six men accused of a gang rape in Punjab state. The alleged attack came weeks after the gang-rape and murder of a student in New Delhi.
Source: AFP

THE gang rape of another female bus passenger by seven men at the weekend has placed fresh pressure on police in India after they named the victim and suggested that she was mentally ill.

Four weeks after the sustained sexual assault in Delhi of a 23-year-old student who later died of her injuries led to mass protests at the heart of India's capital, details of another assault came to light yesterday.

A 29-year-old woman, travelling by bus in the northern state of Punjab on Friday night, was allegedly abducted by the driver and conductor, taken to a remote location and raped by them and five others through the night.

Six of the seven suspects were in custody last night, but police came under fire for naming the victim and suggesting that she was "mentally unstable".

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, said that it was "shocking" that the police should name a rape victim so soon after the Delhi case.

In a media briefing, a Punjab police officer, Raj Jeet Singh, said that the woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was travelling to her village.

Ignoring her pleas to stop, the driver, named as Daler Singh, took her to the town of Gurdaspur and on, by motorcycle, to a "desolate location" where he, the conductor and five others assaulted her sexually.

She was dumped on Saturday morning close to the town of Pathankot, the police officer added.

Following the murderous rape of the physiotherapy student on December 16, India's authorities stand accused of failing to adequately protect women.

In her first published comments, the mother of the deceased student said that all six suspects in that case, including one believed to be a juvenile, deserved to die.

Five men have been charged with the student's rape and murder, and face a possible death penalty if convicted.

The sixth suspect, who says he is 17, is likely to be tried in a juvenile court if it can be confirmed he is a minor. His maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

theaustralian.com.au