Second Indian girl is set on fire after being raped

A 17-YEAR-OLD Indian girl was fighting for her life yesterday after being raped, doused in kerosene and set alight, the second such case to shake the country last week after a series of brutal sexual assaults.

The teenager was attacked on Friday – the same day that a 16-year-old was raped and burnt to death, also in the eastern state of Jharkhand. The two incidents have shone another spotlight on the treatment of rape in India, where authorities are facing pressure to act on sex crimes after the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl.

India’s supreme court yesterday ordered the trial of eight men accused in the eight-year-old’s murder to be moved to another state after her family and lawyer said they had received death threats.

The cases are some of the most notorious since the 2012 rape and murder of a student on a New Delhi bus that triggered mass protests.

“The girl has suffered 70 per cent first-degree burns. There is a chance that she will survive,” Shailendra Barnwal, police superintendent of Pakur district, told AFP. The victim has been moved to a private hospital with specialist facilities for “proper treatment and recovery”, he said.

Police have arrested a 19-year-old man who lives in the same neighbour- hood as the victim.

Fifteen people have been detained in the case of the 16-year-old, who was torched to death in the state’s Chatra district. The main suspect in that case is said to have been angered by a village council punishment of 100 sit-ups and a £554 fine for raping the girl. He attacked her parents before setting their house on fire with the teenager inside.