Public safety in India seems to be deteriorating badly. I can't believe they did this to a police officer.
I think it's time to close this thread.
Woman cop gang-raped in Jharkhand - Times of India
Woman cop gang-raped in Jharkhand
RANCHI: A woman police constable was gangraped by five dacoits in Latehar district of Jharkhand.
The gang rape took place in Udaipura which is 12 km from the Latehar police station on Wednesday night. A case was registered on Thursday.
The 30-year-old survivor with her family members was taking the dead body of a relative for cremation from Ranchi to Garhwa. They were accosted by a gang of dacoits on the Latehar Garhwa National Highway 75.
Police sources said that the woman tried to resist the dacoits when they asked her to get out of the vehicle. "They took the woman aside and took turns to rape her," sub-divisonal police officer (Latehar) Alok Kumar said.
The family members could not do anything as the dacoits were armed. Two of the survivor's sisters were also present in the vehicle.
The dacoits robbed them as well. "Altogether 11 vehicles were looted by the dacoits at gunpoint that night," he added.
DGP Rajiv Kumar on Saturday asked the district police to immediately trace and nab the culprits. "It is a shameful incident. No one involved in the incident would be spared," the DGP said.
A committee has been formed to investigate the case. "We have detained five youths in this connection. They all have criminal history," said Latehar SP Michael S Raj.
India Investigates Two Gang-Rape Cases
Indian police Saturday were investigating two highly publicized gang-rape cases—one in the commercial city Mumbai, the other in the eastern state of Jharkhand—highlighting the country's struggles with sexual violence.
In Jharkhand, police said they had detained five suspects in connection with the rape of a policewoman by a group of men who had set up a roadblock on a highway. The attack occurred Thursday, but wasn't reported to police until Friday, they said.
Associated Press
Photojournalists protest Saturday, Aug. 24, 2013, in Gauhati, India, over the gang rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai this week.
Two men were in custody and three others were being sought by police Saturday in the Mumbai case, in which a 22-year-old magazine intern taking photographs of dilapidated buildings was assaulted in an abandoned textile mill in the city.
The attacks come as the trial of five people accused in the December gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a Delhi bus entered its final phase. That crime sparked nationwide demonstrations and prompted the government to introduce harsher penalties for crimes against women.
Protesters took to the streets of Mumbai on Friday to decry the gang-rape of a woman in a city that has a reputation as a relatively safe place for women. In 2012, the incidence of rape in the Western Indian metropolis was about half the national rate, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
"I've always felt much safer in Mumbai compared to other Indian cities," said Sanika Prabhu, a television producer from Mumbai. "After this incident, I feel like I don't recognize this city anymore."
Mumbai police said the magazine intern was with a 21-year-old male companion when she was attacked. The assailants tied his hands with his belt and raped the woman from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., an official at N.M. Joshi police station said. Medical tests confirmed the rape, he said.
Under Indian law, rape victims cannot be named in media accounts.
There were 24,915 reported rapes in India in 2012, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, including 233 in Mumbai. The victims in almost half the Mumbai cases were between 14 and 18 years old.
Activists say the number of rapes is much higher, as many go unreported. India also has a poor record on convictions, with only around a quarter of alleged rapists convicted in 2010.
In Jharkhand, police said the rape of the police constable occurred at around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, as she and her relatives were transporting the corpse of her brother-in-law for cremation.
"They were accosted by 5 or 6 young men who had set up a roadblock," said S.N. Pradhan, a police official in Jharkhand. According to the criminal complaint, the men stole 40,000 rupees ($632) and then ordered the woman out of the vehicle. "Then they took her to the bush and raped her one by one while others stood watch," he said.
The rape was not reported until Friday, when police—investigating reports of highway robbery—discovered a photo of a policewoman near where the thefts occurred. "The superintendent of police asked her why her photo was there and only then did she report the rape," Mr. Pradhan said.
—Shreya Shah in New Delhi and Kenan Machado contributed to this article.
Write to Khushita Vasant at
khushita.vasant@dowjones.com
