3 held over gang-rape:
Indian police have arrested three suspects over the alleged gang-rape of a student by a group of men, some of whom had been charged with a previous attack on her, an officer said Wednesday.
The 21-year-old, who belongs to the lowest Dalit caste, has told police she was abducted near her college in the north Indian state of Haryana last week by the five men, who then drugged and raped her.
According to relatives quoted in Indian media, she identified all five as the men who had raped her before, in 2013. Two men were charged over that attack, but were released on bail while awaiting trial.
“We arrested three of them yesterday,” Pushpa Khatri, a police officer involved in the investigation, told AFP without giving further details. A local court sent the three accused to police custody until Sunday, after a prosecutor asked for them to be remanded for further questioning, an officer present at the hearing said.
It was unclear whether the two men already facing charges were among those arrested. Police said they were still looking for two other suspects in the latest case.
The woman was found unconscious in bushes on the side of a highway last Wednesday night.
Her family has said the five men had issued threats before the latest attack, demanding that they withdraw the case lodged after the 2013 assault. (AFP)
Indian lawmakers in uproar:
India’s parliament was in uproar Wednesday after four men belonging to the low-caste Dalit community were beaten while trying to skin a dead cow in western India.
Lawmakers from the opposition parties shouted slogans while accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of failing to protect the Dalits, who belong to the lowest rung of Hinduism’s caste hierarchy.
Videos of the four being stripped and beaten with sticks by men claiming to be cow protectors in Gujarat state last week have gone viral and have sparked protests by Dalit groups across the state.
Hindus consider cows to be sacred and the slaughter of cows is banned in many parts of India. Slaughtering a cow carries a punishment of up to seven years in jail.
Attacks against Muslims and Dalits accused of eating or smuggling beef have risen since Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party came to power two years ago.
Vigilante groups comprising mostly members of Hindu nationalist organizations have become active in small towns and cities across India over the past year. Last year, a Muslim man was lynched by a mob in northern Uttar Pradesh state over charges that his family had eaten beef for dinner.
Dalits usually carry out undesirable tasks such as skinning dead animals, and many work in tanneries and in the leather industry.
The four men who were attacked by vigilantes in Una town in Gujarat last week worked in a tannery. In the video, they were seen pleading that they were tannery workers who were only skinning the dead animal. Gujarat’s top elected official, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, on Tuesday promised that her government would take strict action against those involved in the attack.
“Dalits are being oppressed in Gujarat and we have to raise our voices to get the government to act,” said Derek O’Brien, a lawmaker from West Bengal state. “This is an organized crime that is happening in Gujarat.” (AP)