5 rape suspects arrested in India

Protests erupt over latest crimes against women, despite police roundup and tough penalties.

NEW DELHI — Even as police in Mumbai announced they had arrested all five suspects accused of raping a young photographer, news of a similar attack on a female officer in eastern India reignited an angry debate about the safety ofwomen in the country.

The crime in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, triggered street protests and an outpouring of anger as the world’s second-mostpopulous country prepares to hold national elections by May. Jharkhand police said on Saturday that one of their female officers was pulled out of a car and gang-raped by bandits as she escorted the body of her murdered sister to be cremated lastweek.

“Law and order is going to be one of the biggest election issues,” said N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the New Delhi-based Center for Media Studies. “Angry voters want to know why the government is not able to stop these attacks. The more they keep happening, the more this issue is going to snowball.”

The attacks followa bout of national soul-searching caused by the gang rape and murder of a student in New Delhi in December that triggered weeks of protests. Even after the enactment of new laws imposing stricter penalties for men who attack women and the establishment of fast-track courts, India is struggling to tame violent and chauvinistic male attitudes that leave ordinary women vulnerable to harassment and rape.

HomeMinisterSushilkumar Shinde told lawmakers in parliament Monday that the male colleaguewhowas with the photojournalist at the time of the Thursday attack in Mumbai provided vital clues that led to the arrest of the five suspects.

The woman, working as an intern with a magazine, was assaulted while shooting photos at an abandoned textile mill. While the victim was taken away and repeatedly raped, her companion was tied up and beaten.

The five suspects are likely to face prosecution under a new law that sets the maximum prison term for rape at 20 years if they are convicted.

The Jharkhand police officerwas attacked lastweek but details only emerged over the weekend because she didn’t initially report the crime. The officer was traveling with her family late at night when their car was stopped by ax-wielding men, who robbed them and later took her to an isolated spot and raped her, Superintendent of Police Michael Raj said in a telephone interview.

The woman, a widow in her late 20s, was accompanying the body of her sister who was shot dead by criminals, he said. She joined the police force only last year after her husband was killed by Maoist insurgents.

In response to public fury about the New Delhi gang rape in December, the government toughened lawson sexual assault, criminalizing stalking and voyeurism, and allowing for capital punishment if an attack leaves the victim in a vegetative state. This has failed to reduce the crime. InNew Delhi, the Indian city that has the highest number of sexual assaults, the attacks doubled in the first six months of the year.

Safety concerns among women travelers were partly to blame for a 35 percent drop in female foreign tourist arrivals in the first three months of this year, according to an April study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.