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Teen girls gang-raped and hanged from a tree - police


Veiled mothers of the two teenage girls, who were raped and hanged from a tree, speak to the media at Budaun district in Uttar Pradesh May 31, 2014.
REUTERS/Anindito Mukherjee


Policemen show two men (L and 2nd R), who are accused of gang raping and hanging two girls, to the media at Budaun district in Uttar Pradesh May 30, 2014.
REUTERS/Stringer

By Nita Bhalla
Thu May 29, 2014 6:29pm IST

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Police have arrested one man and are looking for four other suspects after two teenage girls were gang-raped and then hanged from a tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh, police said on Thursday.

The two cousins, who were from a low-caste Dalit community and aged 14 and 15, went missing from their village home in Uttar Pradesh's Budaun district when they went out to go to the toilet on Tuesday evening.

The following morning, villagers found the bodies of the two teenagers hanging from a mango tree in a nearby orchard.

"We have registered a case under various sections, including that of rape, and one of the accused has been taken into custody. There were five people involved, one has been arrested and we are looking for the others," Budaun's Superintendent of Police Man Singh Chouhan told reporters.

Chouhan said a post-mortem confirmed the two minors were raped and died from the hanging. DNA samples have been also been taken to help identity the perpetrators, he added.

The victim's families say the girls were gang-raped and then hanged by five men from the village. They allege that local police were shielding the attackers as they refused to take action when the girls were first reported missing.

It was only after angry villagers found the hanging corpses and took the bodies to a nearby highway and blocked it in protest, say the families, that police registered a case of rape and murder.

A case of conspiracy has also been registered against two constables, said Chouhan, adding that they had also been suspended.

Sex crimes against young girls and women are widespread in India, say activists, adding that females from poor, marginalized, low-caste communities are often the victims.

A report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights in April last year said 48,338 child rape cases were recorded in India from 2001 to 2011, and the annual number of reported cases had risen more than fourfold - 336 percent - over that period.

Women's rights experts and lawyers say rape victims also have to endure harsh treatment from an archaic, poorly funded and insensitive criminal justice system.

Police often try to dissuade victims from complaining and suggest a "compromise" between the victim and the perpetrator, largely because of their insensitivity to sex crimes, but also because police officials are rarely held accountable.

Public outrage over the fatal gang rape of a woman in New Delhi in December 2012 pushed the government into passing a tougher new law to punish sex crimes. This includes sentences of up to two years’ jail for police and hospital authorities if they fail to register a complaint or treat a victim.

(Editing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters

http://in.reuters.com//article/2014/05/29/uk-india-killings-idINKBN0E91AI20140529 [no comments yet], photos from slideshow at http://in.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=INRTR3RM7J


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New Delhi seeks report on grisly rape, hanging of teens

By Sharat Pradhan
LUCKNOW, India Fri May 30, 2014 5:10pm IST

May 30 (Reuters) - India's new home minister weighed in on Friday in a grisly case in which two teenage girls were raped and hanged from a tree this week, as public anger and political controversy over the attack gain momentum.

The case is one of the first challenges for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his four-day-old government. It highlights the ongoing struggle to stem sexual violence in India, where a string of high-profile rapes has sparked nationwide protests and international criticism.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked the state government of Uttar Pradesh to submit a report on the attack, a ministry spokesman said.

Modi, a prolific Twitter user, has not yet commented on the killings in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and a key political battleground. Modi's Hindu nationalist party swept 73 of the state's 80 parliamentary seats in its landslide general election victory.

The two cousins, from a low-caste community and aged 14 and 15, went missing from their home in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Budaun district on Tuesday evening when they went out to go to the toilet. The next morning, villagers found their bodies hanging from a mango tree in a nearby orchard.

Local police said a post-mortem confirmed that the girls, from the Dalit community, had been raped and died from the hanging. Three men - one a policeman - have been arrested over the attack and a search is under way for two other suspects.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has ordered that the case be handled by a fast-track court "to ensure that the guilty are brought to book without the usual procedural delay", his spokesman Navneet Sehgal said.

Another Dalit teenage girl was gang-raped and strangled in the constituency of Yadav's father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of the regional Samajwadi party, on Thursday night, police said.

Mulayam Singh Yadav provoked outrage during the election campaign by saying about the death penalty for some rape cases: "Boys commit mistakes. Will they be hanged for rape?"

Mayawati, an opposition leader in Uttar Pradesh whose party enjoys widespread Dalit support, slammed the rape and hangings as evidence of the "jungle raj" that ran the state and failed to impose law and order.

A small crowd staged a protest against the killings outside the Uttar Pradesh state government's office in Delhi on Friday afternoon.

The poor state of women's safety in India has been under the spotlight since the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital Delhi in 2012, which led to the introduction of tougher rape laws.

This week's case underlined how women from lower castes were particularly vulnerable, human rights activists said.

"Members of dominant castes are known to use sexual violence against Dalit women and girls as a political tool for punishment, humiliation and assertion of power," Divya Iyer, at Amnesty International India, said in a statement.

(Writing by Shyamantha Asokan; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Nick Macfie)

Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/30/india-killings-idINL3N0OG2PI20140530 [no comments yet]


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Children raped, forced to eat faeces in Maharashtra school - police

By Nita Bhalla
Fri May 30, 2014 11:20am IST

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The owner and manager of a children's boarding school in Maharashtra have been arrested after five minors said they were raped, forced to watch pornographic films and act them out with one another, police and charity workers said.

The children were made to eat faeces as a punishment if they did not comply.

The 52-year-old owner of the Chandraprabha Charitable Trust and his 30-year-old female manager were arrested on Monday after a police raid on the school in Karjat city.

"We received a police complaint from the Childline charity saying that one child had gone home for the holidays and confessed to his mother that abuses were happening," Karjat's Police Inspector R.R. Patil told the Thomson Reuters Foundation late on Thursday.

"Five children in total have now come forward and we have booked the two suspects under various offences," he said, adding that these included unnatural sex (sodomy), wrongful confinement and sexual assault.

The school accommodated 28 underprivileged children, aged between 4 and 14, for 10 months of the year, said Patil, but most were on holiday at home at the time of the raid.

Police were trying to find out whether other children were abused and if there were any other suspects.

Anuradha Sahasrabudhe of Childline, a charity supported by the government, said the children had spoken about all kinds of sexual and physical abuse.

"It's a horrific case. The children have been telling us about the sexual abuse going on there. There has been oral sex, there has been forced sex... These things have been photographed," Saharasabudhe told the NDTV news channel.

"Children have been punished by making them eat dog excreta and when they vomited, they were made to eat vomit," she added.

Police say the residential school had been running since 2002, but was not registered and had therefore escaped government inspections by child welfare officials.

Child sexual abuse is disturbingly common in homes, schools, and residential care facilities in India.

Inspection mechanisms for children's homes, shelters and schools are inadequate and many privately run facilities are not even registered, a February 2013 report by Human Rights Watch said.

In May 2012, serious sexual abuse was uncovered at a well-established residential care home for orphans called Apna Ghar (Our Home) in Rohtak on the outskirts of Delhi.

Girls said they were forced to have sex with strangers for money and that they had been abused.

(Editing by Douglas Busvine)

Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/30/us-india-abuse-idINKBN0EA0DZ20140530 [no comments yet]


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Malaysian teenager gang-raped by 38 men - media

By Trinna Leong
KUALA LUMPUR Fri May 30, 2014 6:01pm IST

(Reuters) - Malaysian police have detained 13 men and are looking for other suspects following allegations that a 15-year-old girl was raped by 38 men in an abandoned hut, media said on Friday.

Astro Awani television and and The Star daily reported that the assault took place in the northern state of Kelantan on May 20 when the girl met a girlfriend and was lured to an empty hut reported to be a local drug haunt.

The men took turns to rape her for hours. Police were also investigating whether her 17-year-old friend was also raped.

The alleged attack, one of several brutal caes this week underscoring the violence to which women are being subjected across Asia, sparked outrage among women's groups. Politicians from a Muslim party running the region said their proposal to introduce Islamic hudud law, with harsh penalties, would deter offenders.

State and federal police officers either declined comment or could not be immediately reached.

Media accounts, quoting information from district police chief Azham Otham, said 38 men were involved.

Several of those detained had tested positive for amphetamine, the reports said. The New Straits Times said a man and his two teenage sons were among those detained.

Police said action could have been taken had villagers reported the addicts’ presence.

"It is very disturbing to me that no one in the village was even suspicious when the closest neighbour was a mere 20 metres away," police chief Azham told The Star.

Almost 3,000 rapes were reported to the police in 2012, of which 52 percent involved girls aged 16 and below, according to police statistics.

Convicted rapists face up to 30 years in prison and whipping, but many on Internet sites wanted stricter punishment.

"We are seeing a prevalence in rape cases because boys are raised in an environment where they think it is okay to use violence," Suri Kempe of Sisters in Islam told Reuters.

Awareness of rape in Asia was heightened by the fatal gang rape of a physiotherapy student on an Indian bus in 2012.

Several grisly attacks on women took place this week.

In the Pakistan city of Lahore, a pregnant woman was bludgeoned to death by her family in front of a top court for marrying against the wishes of her parents.

And in India's Uttar Pradesh state, two teenage cousins from a low caste were gang-raped and then hanged from a tree.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/30/malaysia-crime-rape-idINKBN0EA15Y20140530 [no comments yet]


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