New Delhi Protestors

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Police get into big ol' water gun fight with rape protesters...

Police use water cannons on Indian rape protesters
June 2, 2014 — Police used water cannons Monday to disperse hundreds of women protesting violence against women in the northern Indian state where two teenagers were gang-raped and found hanging from a tree.

The protesters in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, were demonstrating outside the office of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, demanding that he crack down on rape and other violence against women and girls. Hundreds of police officers, including female officers, pushed and shoved the protesters before deploying water cannons to disperse them. They also demanded that the government curb police indifference, which they said was encouraging attacks against women.

Police in the tiny Uttar Pradesh village of Katra failed to take any action last week when the father of one of the girls reported to police that the two cousins were missing. Two police officers were fired for dereliction of duty after the girls were found gang-raped and killed. Yadav has recommended a federal inquiry, but his government has been widely accused of a lackadaisical approach toward women's safety.

An Indian woman, left, one among the protestors demonstrating outside the office of Uttar Pradesh state chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, demanding that he crack down on an increasing number of rape and other attacks on women and girls, scuffles with police in Lucknow, India, Monday, June 2, 2014. Police used water cannons to disperse hundreds of women who were protesting Monday against a rise in violence against women in the northern Indian state where two teenagers were gang-raped last week and later found hanging from a tree.

Activists and ordinary people said it was as if nothing had changed in the way the police dealt with rape cases since the December 2012 fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman aboard a moving bus in New Delhi, the national capital. The outcry following that attack led to laws doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. The law also makes it a crime for officers to refuse to register cases when complaints are made.

People also are beginning to speak up against violent crimes targeting women, and public protests against police inaction are common. Records show a rape is committed every 22 minutes in India, though it's considered drastically underreported. Victims and their families may not report the crime at all due to social stigma, frustration with court delays or harassment by police. And police may be reluctant to register cases in order to keep down crime figures.

Police use water cannons on Indian rape protesters | CNS News

See also:

Two girls died looking for a toilet. This should make us angry, not embarrassed
Saturday 31 May 2014 ~ Attacks on girls and women as they look for somewhere private to defecate are frighteningly common. Improving basic sanitation, as a global goal, would do a lot to make them safer

Two teenage girls have been gang-raped and killed after doing what half a billion women and girls are forced to do every day – go outdoors to try to find somewhere discreet to go to the toilet. A toilet, bathroom, powder room – whatever you want to call it – at home, at school, at work, in the shopping mall, is something many of us take for granted and cannot talk about without feeling embarrassed. But we must: because the lack of toilets is costing women their lives. Today, 2.5 billion people live without access to a toilet, forcing women to walk to dark and dangerous places to find the privacy they need – those same dark and dangerous places where men wait to attack them.

A slum in India: for want of basic sanitation children often defecate near the railway tracks.

So we must stop blushing when we talk about open defecation because it is not something to be embarrassed about: it is something to be angry about. Those two cousins, just 14 and 16 years old, had left their homes in the Indian village of Katra, in Uttar Pradesh, because they had no toilet at home. They were never to return, found hanging from a tree after being brutally attacked. A report in the Times of India in February this year quoted the police in another district of Uttar Pradesh as saying that 95% of cases of rape and molestation took place when women and girls had left their homes to "answer a call of nature".

But this is certainly not just an Indian problem. One in three people around the world lack access to basic sanitation, while 1 billion of those – that is, 15% of the global population – currently practise open defecation. A WaterAid study in the slums of Lagos in Nigeria showed that a quarter of women who lacked access to sanitation had first- or second-hand experience of harassment, threats of violence or actual assault linked to their lack of a safe, private toilet in the last year. Amnesty International has released similar studies from Kenya and the Solomon Islands.

MORE

 

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Rape victim's family threatened...

Indian gang-rape girl's family say they have been threatened with violence
Tuesday 3 June 2014 ~ Father of teenage girl who hanged herself after repeated attacks says friends of accused have threatened mob attacks on family

The father of one of two girls found hanged in a tree in northern India after they were abducted and gang-raped by local men has said he has been threatened with violence by associates of the accused. Sohan Lal, 50, told local reporters that people close to the three brothers detained in connection with the deaths had threatened mob attacks against him and his family after reporters leave the village of Katara Sadatgunj, around 200 miles from the capital Delhi. Lal said he had been told: "Once the media have gone, we will make war on you."

Such intimidation of witnesses and family members occurs often in India. Survivors of assaults and rapes are also subjected to further attacks to prevent them giving evidence or to force them to withdraw criminal complaints. Some are murdered. The poor and lawless northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where the double gang-rape and alleged murder happened last week, is especially prone to such problems. Police in the state have a reputation for brutality and corruption.

Women in New Delhi protest against the gang-rape of two teenage girls in Uttar Pradesh, who hanged themselves last week.

In one incident, a 10-year-old girl who was abducted and then gang-raped in March in the city of Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh. First she had been run down by a car driven by men related to her attackers, one of whom had been arrested. Last weekend, she was abducted again. In one of the most notorious recent cases, a woman was gang-raped twice in West Bengal six months ago, the second time as she returned with her parents from the police station where she had reported the first attack. She later died in a third attack when petrol was poured over her and lit. Murder and rape are crimes punishable by death under Indian law. Conviction rates, at around 25%, are considered to be relatively high.

Attacks often go unreported in the media, but a string of high profile incidents of sexual violence has prompted Indian media to give greater prominence to sexual violence. Local newspapers here have highlighted a series of incidents in recent days in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere. These include a 22-year-old woman who was allegedly gang-raped and then strangled in the Bareilly district. An attempt appears to have been made to render her corpse unidentifiable with acid. Elsewhere, a 50-year-old woman was found hanged in a tree after a suspected assault. Three cases of rape were reported in the Rampur district.

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Caste system & poverty contribute to India's rape epidemic...

Gang Rape Highlights India's Caste Problem
June 03, 2014 — The rape and murder of two young girls in northern India has highlighted the sexual oppression of low caste women in the country, particularly in its vast rural areas. The case also demonstrates the serious risks faced by women living in homes without indoor plumbing, which was a campaign issue for the country’s new government.

The grisly images of two 14 and 15 year old cousins hanging from a tree in Buduan district of India's Uttar Pradesh state, after they were gang raped and strangled last week sent shock waves through the nation. But a retired police official in the state, S.R. Darapuri, was not surprised at the horrific crime, which targeted teenage girls from a low caste family of farm laborers. That is because during his 32-year-stint in the poor and backward state, he has witnessed first-hand many such incidents of exploitation of “dalit” community, members of India's lowest caste.

“The higher castes they have been exploiting the women of the dalits and the weaker section just as a matter of right. And sometimes rape is used as a weapon to suppress these sections of society," said Darapuri. "And these sections they are not able to resort to self defense. The main reason is that they are dependent on the land owning caste and as such they are very vulnerable.”

Victims from low caste

Darapuri, is now an activist working with the Indian human rights group People’s Union for Civil Liberties. He says his analysis of rape cases in Uttar Pradesh in 2007 showed 85 percent of the victims were low caste, minor girls. Four of the five men arrested for the crime belong to the politically powerful Yadav community. They include three brothers who have been charged with rape and murder, and two police officials for attempting to cover up the crime. The Yadavs are also designated as a backward caste, but are much higher than dalits in the complex caste hierarchy of Hindus.

Faced with outrage, India’s new government is resolving to act quickly. Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, has pledged to set up a national helpline for women and rape crisis centers. “There is nothing that any ministry or any government can do to prevent people from being violent to each other except give them strong protection and give strong deterrence," said Gandhi. "It is the aim of this government to provide deterrence and protection and we will do that as effectively as we can.” But activists like Darapuri question where such protection will come from. The latest incident exposes police indifference to the plight of lower castes.

Police indifference

See also:

India state minister on rape: 'Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong'
Thursday 5 June 2014 ~ Home minister in BJP-run Madhya Pradesh state describes rape as a 'social crime' in comments playing down rapes

A state minister from Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has described rape as a "social crime", saying "sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong", in the latest controversial remarks by an Indian politician about rape. The political leaders of Uttar Pradesh, the state where two cousins aged 12 and 14 were raped and hanged last week, have faced criticism for failing to visit the scene and for accusing the media of hyping the story.

A regional politician from Modi's own Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), said that the crime of rape can only be considered to have been committed if it is reported to police. "This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong," said Babulal Gaur, the home minister responsible for law and order in the BJP-run central state of Madhya Pradesh. "Until there's a complaint, nothing can happen," he told reporters. Gaur also expressed sympathy with Mulayam Singh Yadav, head of the regional Samajwadi party that runs Uttar Pradesh. In the recent election, Mulayam criticised legal changes that foresee the death penalty for gang rape, saying: "Boys commit mistakes: will they be hanged for rape?"

Women in Uttar Pradesh protest against the state goverment after two cousins aged 12 and 14 were raped and hanged.

The BJP dismissed Gaur's comments as an expression of his personal views, and not the party's. Modi, who was sworn in as prime minister last week after a landslide election victory, has so far remained silent over the double killing in the village of Katra Shahadatganj, around half a day's drive east of Delhi. The father and uncle of one of the victims said they tried to report the crime to local police but were turned away. Three men have been arrested over the killings. Two policemen have been held on suspicion of trying to cover up the crime. Although a rape is reported in India every 21 minutes on average, law enforcement failures mean that such crimes – a symptom of pervasive sexual and caste oppression – are often not reported or properly investigated, human rights groups say.

More sex crimes have come to light in recent days. A woman in a nearby district of Uttar Pradesh was gang-raped, forced to drink acid and strangled to death. Another was shot dead in northeast India while resisting attackers, media reports said. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has said he was "especially appalled" by the rape and murder of the two girls. "We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of, 'Boys will be boys'," he said in a statement this week that made clear his contempt for the language used by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/india-state-minister-rape-crimes-comment

 

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Say what!!!...

Indian Village Council Orders Low Caste Sisters To Be Raped, Paraded Naked For Brother's Actions
Aug 29, 2015 - An Indian village council has allegedly sentenced two low caste sisters to be raped as a revenge for their brother's elopement with an upper caste girl.

The council, locally referred as Khap Panchayat, in the Baghpat district of northern Uttar Pradesh state issued an order that a 23-year-old Dalit girl and her sister should be raped and paraded naked in their village as punishment for her brother eloping with an upper caste married Jat woman, according to India TV News. "On July 30, the Jat community held a khap panchayat and decided to avenge the dishonour. The petitioner has been condemned to be raped and paraded naked after blackening their faces only because her brother fell in love and eloped with her friend. The family can never return," their attorney Vivek Singh told Hindustan Times.

The Dalit sisters have appealed to the India's Supreme Court for protection following the Khap Panchayat's shocking order, according to Telegraph India. "She and her family cannot return back to her village and have been rendered homeless. She has been condemned by the Khap Panchayat to be raped and paraded naked because her brother Ravi fell in love and eloped with her friend Krishna who belongs to the dominant caste of Jat," the Dalit girls' petition to the New Delhi-based Supreme Court said, The Times of India reported.

The sisters said in their petition that upper caste Jat community members forced their family members to flee the village and take refuge in Delhi. The Dalit girls and their family members have faced constant harassment from the Jat community as well as police before fleeing the village.

Indian Village Council Orders Low Caste Sisters To Be Raped, Paraded Naked For Brother's Actions

 

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Fast trackin' rapists to prison in India...

Three men get 20 years for gang rape of Japanese student in India
Sept. 4, 2015 | The fast-track trial included an application of a new law broadening the rape statute.

Three men in Jaipur, India, were sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday for the rape of a Japanese student who was visiting the country.

The three defendants included, Ajit Singh Chaudhary, the man found to be the primary actor in the assault, and Abrar Wahid and Abdul Wahid, who were convicted under a new law deeming any accomplices present and planning "common intention" to commit rape to have committed the crime. Three others, identified as Shivraj, Ramraj and Rambveer, were found guilty of conspiring to gang-rape the victim and were sentenced to three years in prison. Three other suspects were released.

Police said the tourist, 19, was befriended by Chaudhary and given a private tour of Jaipur by motorcycle. Instead of taking her to her hotel, she was taken to an isolated area 37 miles from the city, where a gang-rape was planned. A fast-track application was submitted to the court by police, requesting a speedy trial. Chaudhary was charged within a week of his Feb. 13 arrest.

Three men get 20 years for gang rape of Japanese student in India

 

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Rape capital of the world becomes even more sordid...

Girls aged two and five raped in separate attacks in Delhi
Saturday 17 October 2015 - Crowd protests over lack of arrests in case of two-year-old who was abducted from a religious event and later dumped in a park

Girls aged two and five have been raped in separate attacks in Delhi, sparking angry protests in the Indian capital over police inaction. The two-year-old was abducted from a religious event in west Delhi by two men on Friday night and raped before being dumped in a park near her home, police and relatives said. In a separate incident on the other side of the city, the five-year-old was lured to a neighbour’s house and raped by three men, a police officer said. A crowd of more than 100 people gathered near the two-year-old’s home on Saturday afternoon to protest against the police’s failure to make arrests in the case. One female relative of the girl said: “[Police] are not doing anything to arrest the rapists. We don’t feel safe in this city.” Delhi has been grappling with a spate of sexual assaults against women – and in several recent cases, children – which have sparked outrage both in India and abroad.

Women shout at police near the home of a two-year-old girl who was abducted and raped, in Delhi.​

Pushpendra Kumar, the police chief for west Delhi, said a manhunt for the two men suspected of raping the two-year-old had begun, but no arrests had yet been made. The toddler was bleeding profusely when she was found several hours after being abducted. Authorities have released video of two men riding away on a motorbike with the victim. Separately, police in eastern Delhi arrested three men overnight in the case of the five-year-old, who tests showed was raped multiple times. Both girls were undergoing medical treatment. This month a four-year-old girl was allegedly raped and slashed with a knife before being abandoned by a railway track in Delhi. Police arrested a 25-year-old man in that attack. On Saturday the Delhi Commission for Women chair, Swati Maliwal, said violence against women had assumed “epidemic proportions” in the city. Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said the attacks were “shameful and worrying”, and criticised the prime minister Narendra Modi’s government and his lieutenant governor over the security situation.

Kejriwal and Modi’s administration are jostling for control of the capital’s police department, while Delhi city authorities say they are unable to improve security for women. They blame Modi’s government, which controls Delhi’s 84,000 police officers – the world’s largest metropolitan force. Ranjana Kumari, head of the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research, said the turf war between the two governments was making the city less safe for women. “Most of these incidents have been reported in lower-income areas like slums and densely populated areas, where mostly migrants stay,” she said. “These men live in crammed spaces with no social or parental control and usually no fear of law.” The fatal gang-rape of a young student on a bus in Delhi in 2012 led to an outpouring of anger over levels of violence against women. India recorded 36,735 rape cases in 2014, almost 3,000 of which were in Delhi. The true scale of the problem is likely to be far worse.

Girls aged two and five raped in separate attacks in Delhi

 

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The British were right - they are a bunch of oversexed savages...

Police arrest 2 teens in rape of toddler in Indian capital
Oct 18,`15: Police arrested two teenagers Sunday for allegedly raping a toddler in New Delhi, in the latest incident of sexual violence against a young child in the Indian capital.

Police said they questioned more than 250 residents of the western Delhi neighborhood where the 2 1/2-year-old girl was raped and left bleeding in a park Friday evening. The two 17-year-old boys were arrested late Saturday, said Dependra Pathak, a top police officer. Pushpendra Kumar, deputy commissioner of police, said after they were interrogated, the teens admitted their guilt. The toddler was playing outside her home when she went missing during a 10-minute power outage in the neighborhood. Family members found her lying unconscious and bleeding in a park three hours later.

In a separate incident, police on Saturday arrested three men for raping a 5-year-old in an east Delhi suburb. The rape of the two girls came a week after a 4-year-old girl was found dumped near a railway track after being raped and slashed with a blade in the capital. The assaults have caused uproar, with Delhi residents accusing the city's government of failure to protect women and girls. Delhi's top elected official, Arvind Kejriwal, hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying police were failing at their job. Although Kejriwal is the capital's chief minister, Delhi Police reports to the federal government under Modi.

Kejriwal said that the government and police were not doing enough to protect women in the city and that crimes against them were on the rise, once again insisting that control over police should be handed over to the state government. A series of recent attacks has renewed public fury and horror over India's inability to halt chronic violence against women and girls. In December 2012, the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus led to a national outcry. In response to that attack, the government doubled the maximum prison term for rape to 20 years, created special courts to prosecute cases more quickly, and made voyeurism and acid attacks specific crimes under the law. India's National Crime Records Bureau says more than 2,000 girls and women were raped in New Delhi in 2014.

News from The Associated Press

 

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Parents of Delhi gang-rape victim want identity of attacker revealed...

Delhi gang-rape: Parents of woman fatally attacked on bus want youngest of her assailants identified to block release
25 Nov.`15 - The man, who was 17 when he committed the crime, was tried as a juvenile and given the maximum term of three years in detention, but the victim's family claim he remains a threat to society and should be kept behind bars

The parents of an Indian woman fatally gang-raped on a Delhi bus have appealed for the youngest of her attackers to be identified if they cannot block his release from prison next month. Four men were sentenced to death for the savage assault in 2012, which triggered global outrage and soul-searching across India about the levels of violence against women. But a fifth assailant, who was 17 when he committed the crime and therefore cannot be identified, was tried as a juvenile and given the maximum term of three years in detention. He is due to be freed within weeks.

The parents of the 23-year-old victim, who became known as “Nirbhaya” meaning “fearless”, have lodged a complaint with India’s National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), claiming the man remains a threat to society and should be kept behind bars. “Tomorrow he will be living among us anonymously. Will he be able to resist the temptation of similar crimes?”, the victim’s father said. “If there is no law that can jail him, at least make his face public and monitor his movements.”

Protesters carry candles in remembrance of the 23-year-old Delhi gang rape victim​

The attack on the trainee physiotherapist, who was lured on to a private bus on a foggy December night, repeatedly raped, tortured and then left on the side of the road to die, turned worldwide attention to women’s safety and gender-based violence in India. Tighter laws to punish sex crimes were rushed through in the wake of her death but her family’s petition to the NCHR calls for the introduction of a sex offenders register. “There is no doubt that the complainants have undergone extreme agony and pain after the rape and murder of their daughter,” the commission said. “The fears expressed by them need to be looked into.”

The NCHR has given the government and police two weeks to respond. The short jail term handed to the youngest attacker angered many who said it did not reflect the brutality of the crime. It prompted a debate about trying juveniles as adults for serious offences. The four men on death row are appealing against their sentences. A sixth man accused in the case hanged himself in jail during the trial.

Parents of Delhi gang-rape victim want identity of attacker revealed

 

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Wow they're pissed!! Gang rape on a public bus?

Sounds Iike a normal Thursday in major liberal cities here.

 

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Schoolgirl raped by classmates in Mumbai...

India schoolboys arrested for gang-raping classmate
27 November 2015 - Four schoolboys in the western Indian city of Mumbai have been arrested for allegedly gang-raping their classmate.

Police said the boys, reported to be between 15-16 years old, also recorded a video and circulated it on WhatsApp. The accused and the victim lived in the same area and used to go to each others' homes to study together. The boys were produced in court after which they were sent to a juvenile reform home, police said, adding that they were investigating further.

In recent years, there have been many protests about rape in India​

The girl was first raped on 8 November and she was assaulted several times since then, Shashank Sandbhor, a senior police officer in the city's Malad police station, told BBC Hindi's Ashwin Aghor. "On 8 November, one of the accused telephoned the girl and invited her to his home, saying he needed help with his studies. Once she arrived, he and his friends gang-raped her," Mr Sandbhor said. "The boys threatened the girl that they would upload the video on social media and raped her on several occasions thereafter. At the same time, they uploaded the video on WhatsApp," he added. The girl's father is dead and her mother works abroad, so she lives with her sister, grandmother and aunt.

The video was extensively shared on WhatsApp and on Wednesday, someone sent it the girl's aunt, who spoke to the victim and got her to reveal what had happened, police said. A case of gang rape has been registered and the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act has been invoked against the accused, officials said. The incident comes as a juvenile who was convicted in a high-profile case three years ago in which a young woman died after being gang-raped on board a Delhi bus, is due to be released from detention. It has led to much public debate over India's sexual assault laws especially those that deal with juvenile offenders.

India schoolboys arrested for gang-raping classmate - BBC News

 

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A bid to end the stigma facing sex attack victims in India...

Mother names Delhi gang-rape victim
17 December 2015 - The mother of a student who died after being gang-raped publicly named her daughter for the first time on Wednesday, in a bid to end the stigma facing sex attack victims in India.

The 23-year-old student died after being brutally assaulted on a bus in New Delhi in 2012, triggering global outrage and protests in India over the country's high levels of violence against women. Rape victims are normally shunned and vilified in deeply patriarchal India and they cannot be named under national law in a bid to protect them. “I feel no shame in naming my daughter. I say this in front of you all that her name was Jyoti Singh,” Asha Singh said at a public gathering in Delhi to mark the third anniversary of the attack. “You all must also from now onwards call her Jyoti Singh.” “There is no need for us to feel any shame. It is the perpetrators of heinous crimes who must feel ashamed of themselves,” she said to roaring applause from the audience.

Four men were convicted and handed the death penalty in 2014 over the attack which occurred after Singh was lured on board the bus with a male friend following a trip to the cinema. The Supreme Court has not yet heard the men's appeals. Another attacker, who was 17 at the time, is set to be freed in coming days after serving the maximum three years in a detention facility for juveniles. The victim's father on Wednesday criticised his imminent release, saying it was unclear if he had reformed during his time in the facility. “Almost every day we read about even small girls being raped. If criminals like him are let off I fear what will happen to society,” he said. He also accused politicians of lacking the will to end what he called India's rape crisis. The government introduced tougher penalties for rapists and other measures after the 2012 attack, but India has repeatedly hit the headlines for a series of brutal attacks including those of children and foreign women.

Women's rights groups have also opposed the juvenile's release, mainly on the grounds that it was unclear if he had been rehabilitated and was ready to be reintegrated into society. “We'd like to know if he repents what he did and whether he can live amongst us in society and not be a threat,” said Ranjana Kumari, head of the Centre for Social Research think-tank in Delhi. The National Commission of Women has also protested, saying his release would do nothing to tackle a culture of impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence. The country recorded 36 735 rape cases in 2014, with 2 096 of them in Delhi alone, although experts say those figures are likely to represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Mother names Delhi gang-rape victim | IOL

 

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Juvenile rapist to get out of jail...

Juvenile Convicted in Infamous Delhi Gang-rape Case to Be Released
December 18, 2015 — In India, the youngest rapist convicted of fatally attacking a 23-year-old student in New Delhi three years ago is set to walk free, after the Delhi High Court ruled Friday that it could not delay his release under current laws.

The prisoner, only a teenager when the attack took place, is due to be released on Sunday. This has prompted an outcry by those who say he should face stiffer punishment for the rape that caused the death of Jyoti Singh. Six men attacked Singh on a bus on December 16, 2012. Police said the youngest attacker, then only 17 years old, was the most brutal of the rapists, who beat their victim with an iron rod before sexually assaulting her. After a trial held behind closed doors to protect his identity, the teenager was sentenced to three years of detention – the maximum penalty allowed. Four of the other men arrested were sentenced to death.

Victim's parents disappointed

The High Court verdict Friday came in response to the federal government's plea to extend the rapist's incarceration. Jyoti Singh's anguished parents said they were deeply disappointed. “The assurance we had been given that we would get justice, but we have not got justice," the young physiotherapy student's mother said. "A criminal is being set free.”

The father, left and mother, center, of the Indian student victim who was fatally gang raped on this day three years ago on a moving bus in the Indian capital, join others at a candle lit vigil in New Delhi, India​

Singh's father said the court had its own logic, but the family's was for the sake of all society. “Our [fight] will not end," he said, adding that, without tougher action by the courts, all young women, "even 2-year-olds," are potential victims of rape. Women activists also joined the chorus of protest against the attacker's pending release. The head of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, expressed concern about laws that forbid revealing a juvenile’s identity.

'Kind of a threat'

 

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Time served, juvenile rapist freed and given a new identity...

Convicted Dehli gang-rapist freed from detention
Sunday 20 December 2015 - The youngest convict in a fatal gang-rape on a bus in New Delhi three years ago has been released from a youth correctional facility, Indian police said.

"The convict was handed over to an NGO. He is no longer under the jurisdiction of the police," a Delhi police spokesman said. "He has been given a new identity and his criminal record has been expunged," a police source added. The youth and four other men were found guilty in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in December 2012. During the trial prosecutors said the men lured the woman and a male friend onto a bus as they returned home from a shopping centre.

People protest over the release of the convicted rapist from a youth detention centre​

As the bus drove through the streets of the capital, the men repeatedly raped and tortured the woman before leaving her and her friend, naked and semi-conscious, on the road. The friend survived but the woman died two weeks after the attack as a result of the injuries she sustained. One of those arrested was later found dead in his prison cell.

News of the release was immediately condemned by the parents of the victim. "Our fight was all about this convict not being allowed to walk free. If he has come out, what is the point of the hearing at the Supreme Court?" her mother told reporters. "We want justice for our daughter." The parents and women's rights groups have been opposing the release of the youngest attacker, mainly on the grounds that it was unclear if he had been rehabilitated and was ready to be reintegrated into society.

Convicted Dehli gang-rapist freed from detention

See also:

Women’s rights group files petition with India’s top court to halt release of rapist
Mon, Dec 21, 2015 - India’s top court is set to hear a plea against the release of an attacker in the 2012 deadly gang rape of a student, which provoked international outrage, after a women’s rights body filed a petition early yesterday.

Swati Maliwal, head of the Delhi Commission of Women, submitted the petition to the Indian Supreme Court at 1am, seeking a stay just hours before the convict was to walk free after serving the maximum three-year sentence for juvenile offenders. The court would take up the plea today, pending which Maliwal hoped the offender would not be released. “SC accepted [our] petition. Matter listed on Monday as item No 3. Case subjudice now. Nirbhaya rapist should not be released until case heard,” Maliwal said on Twitter.

The attacker was the youngest of a group of men who brutally assaulted a 23-year-old student on a bus in 2012, triggering global outrage and protests in India over the country’s high levels of violence against women. He was sent to a correction home for three years under India’s juvenile laws, while four others were convicted and handed the death penalty last year. The convicts’ appeals against the hangings is pending in the Supreme Court. The student, who succumbed to her injuries two weeks after the attack, was publicly named by her mother on the third anniversary of her death last week, in an effort to end the stigma facing sex attack victims in India.

Under Indian laws, the identity of rape victims is not revealed even after death, although victims and their families can waive their right to anonymity. The parents and women’s rights groups have been opposing the release of the youngest attacker, mainly on the grounds that it was unclear if he had been rehabilitated and was ready to be reintegrated into society.On Saturday, the parents and scores of students holding placards and banners demonstrated outside the juvenile detention center in Delhi where the offender was held.

Women’s rights group files petition with India’s top court to halt release of rapist - Taipei Times

 

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Granny says is prob'ly God sendin' a plaque o' locusts fer all dem rapes...

Taj Mahal Battles New Threat from Insects
May 26, 2016 | NEW DELHI — India’s iconic Taj Mahal is battling a new threat – swarms of insects that are proliferating in the heavily contaminated waters of the Yamuna River, which flows behind the 17th century monument. Officials say the bugs settle on ledges and leave behind poop which is staining the pearl white marble of the monument with green patches.

“During the evening time they get attracted towards the white surface of the Taj Mahal and during the night they stay over there and leave those green deposits,” says Bhuvan Vikram, the top official at the Archeological Survey of India in the northern city of Agra, where the Taj is located. Although workers clean the droppings, experts fear the heavy doses of scrubbing could damage the delicate inlay work that embellishes the Taj Mahal.

Recent discovery of the problem

Vikram explained that they first encountered the problem last year but only recently identified the cause – a type of elongated fly known as the genus Geoldichironomus. “We found they are breeding in the brackish water of the river which is heavily contaminated,” he said. The insects thrive in the hot weather in the algae that has deposited on the sides of the river. Environmentalists have struggled for years to protect the white marble of the monument from turning yellow due to high levels of air pollution in Agra – a crowded, industrial city that once served as the capital of the Mughal dynasty. While air pollution levels dropped after coal-based power plants and some polluting industries were shut down, the waters of the Yamuna river have not improved.

Yamura river is the source of the insects

Environmental campaigners like D.K. Joshi, who is based in Agra, said the key to warding off the latest threat is to revive the dying river. He has filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal, an environmental court. Joshi said the Yamuna is choking from the effluents of 52 open drains in the city that empty into the river. “Hazardous waste, industrial waste, solid waste, all this empties into the river. Millions of dollars has been spent to clean the river, but nothing has happened,” he said.

Ash from cremations adds to the problem

Experts say ash deposits from a 200 year-old cremation ground in the vicinity of the Taj Mahal are worsening the problem because they are the primary source of food for this particular insect. Six months ago, the Supreme Court asked city authorities to relocate the crematorium – there have also been alarm bells about smoke from the funeral pyres discoloring the marble. That has not happened so far and protests from a Hindu group prompted city authorities to say they will encourage people to use the more environmentally- friendly electric cremation method. Joshi is confident that cleaning the Yamuna can be achieved with a short term program. “Stop the sewage from going into the river, improve its flow. It is not difficult, but the will power is not there,” he said.

Vikram of ASI is hopeful that the latest menace to the Taj Mahal from insects will get attention of the city authorities whose task it is to clean the river. His other worry is the huge pressure that the steady rise in tourism puts on the monument – six million domestic and foreign tourists visited the Taj in 2014. “So much is the amount of dirt that it creates, these are the hazards of tourism. The tourists, they like to touch the surfaces, for that we are trying to provide some kind of separators,” Vikram said.

Taj Mahal Battles New Threat from Insects

 

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Indian rape survivor was allegedly raped again by the same five men...

An Indian rape survivor was allegedly raped again by the same five men
A 20-year-old college student was found in the roadside bushes of a small northern Indian city last week, raped and left for dead. In the days afterward, a shocking possibility came to light: Her attackers may be the same five men who had raped her three years earlier but were out on bail. They allegedly raped her again because she had been so steadfast in her case against them.

Heinous rape cases periodically find airtime in the Indian news cycle, but the outcry is often muted when the victim belongs to a lower caste. The unnamed girl in this case is a Dalit, a term used to describe the lowest rungs of India's caste system. Casteism is outlawed by India's constitution, but the practice is widespread, especially in smaller towns and rural areas. The five men whom the girl's family blames for the rapes belong to the upper castes. According to local media interviews with the girl's family, two of the five accused were arrested in 2013 after the first incident of rape but were let off on bail.

A noose, symbolizing the death penalty, hangs at a candlelight vigil in December 2014 protesting violence against women on the second anniversary of the deadly gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi.​

Family members said the attack last week was retaliation for not withdrawing the case. Instead of settling the matter in court, the five men had wanted to do so out of court, the victim's family members said. The accused wanted to pay about $75,000, a great deal of money in a country where the average annual income hovers about $1,500, but the victim's family members said they repeatedly rejected the offer. “We had filed a case in the court for the arrest of the remaining three and re-arrest of the two out on bail. We were getting constant threats from the accused to reach a compromise outside the court, but we remained firm. That’s why they have attacked her again,” the victim’s brother told the Hindustan Times.

Rohtak, the place where the rape occurred, is outside Delhi, in a state known for its deeply chauvinistic attitudes and patriarchal prejudices — where male-dominated village councils often mete out their brand of misogynistic justice with impunity. The victim's family said this week that her attackers took her from outside her college, drugged her and raped her in a car. The victim was interviewed in her hospital bed and could barely speak. She was able to tell a TV crew that she went unconscious during the rape but could not muster any more words. Her mother said she had relocated her family to Rohtak after the first rape for safety and better education prospects.

An Indian rape survivor was allegedly raped again by the same five men

See also:

Privilege and double standards shape India’s rape culture, too
9 June `16 - When a woman makes an accusation of rape or sexual harassment, the difficulties often multiply beyond the attack itself. She may be shunned. She may be blamed. She may be doubted. Conversely, the alleged perpetrator may be publicly excused. His merits may be remembered, and pity for him, rather than the victim, invoked.

That happened all too often in the recent case of Stanford student Brock Turner, which has outraged America. Turner, despite being found guilty of the sexual assault of a woman, has often been referred to in news reports as a star swimmer and an all-round good kid. He has defended himself, and his family has defended him, in ways that make it clear that they see his assault as a minor infraction and his trial as something that could ruin his life, rather than serve justice. He made "a mistake." All he wanted was some "action."

A rape case with similar contours made headlines in India two years ago. The editor-in-chief of a magazine that had produced an entire special issue on violence against women was accused of sexual harassment and rape of a young female colleague in an elevator at a posh event in seaside Goa. Tarun Tejpal was a respected journalist and novelist, and an organizer of the event. He had powerful connections in many elite Indian institutions.

An image of an op-ed published in Mid-Day, an Indian newspaper, on June 9. The man pictured is Tarun Tejpal, former editor of Tehelka magazine and the accused in a rape case​

So when an op-ed came out in an Indian paper on Thursday asking Indian liberals to "reassess" their scorn for the accused, it wasn't as much a surprise as it was a reminder of the double standards that excuse the behavior of men, particularly those of privilege, in cases of sexual assault. Referring to Tejpal as the "once darling of the intelligentsia," a weekly columnist named Malavika Sangghvi questioned whether his reputation should be tarnished by the allegations. As with Turner, she views what Tejpal is accused of doing simply as a "grave error." "Was there really a need for such vociferous dragging through the coals?" Sangghvi asks.

She apparently believes that although Tejpal is out on bail, he cannot fight the allegations himself, so she has come to his defense. Ironically, with Tejpal now trending on Indian social media, her column has served to remind the country that his trial hasn't even begun, 31 months after he was arrested. Laws in India state that trials involving rape charges must be brought to court within two months of charges being filed — in this case, that happened in February 2014. The backlash against the op-ed was swift and merciless on social media.

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An Indian teen was raped by her father. Village elders had her whipped.
9 May`16 — The teenage girl, dressed in pink, sits in the dirt before six community elders. In a scene captured on a cellphone video, one of the men wags his finger angrily at her. He rages: This girl must be punished.

A villager ties her waist with rope, holding the other end, and lifts a tree branch into the air. She bows her head. The first lash comes, then another, then another. Ten in all. She lets out a wail. Eventually the crowd starts murmuring, “Enough, enough,” although nobody moves to stop the beating. Finally, the man throws down his stick. It’s over. She is 13 years old. Or maybe 15. Her family doesn’t know for sure. She has never set foot in a school and has spent most of her life doing chores at home, occasionally begging for food and performing in her father’s acrobatic show, for which she is given 20 rupees, about 30 cents. Her crime? Being too scared to tell anyone her father raped her.

India is a country of 1.2 billion people, with a growing economy, a young population and an energetic prime minister eager to sell the country on the world stage. A generation of women taking stronger roles in the workforce, in colleges and online isn’t afraid to push against outdated misogyny — be it acid attacks, rape and sexual harassment, or the demeaning portrayal of women in movies and advertisements. Yet patriarchal prejudices ingrained for centuries have been tough to shake loose despite a growing clamor for change — and continue to affect life from the village water pump to the judicial system and beyond.

A girl from the Northern Indian state of Haryana was one of four girls whose supporters say they were raped at the order of a panchayat, village council, as punishment to the entire community over a land dispute.​

Male-dominated village councils have existed in India for centuries to resolve disputes between neighbors and serve as enforcers of social mores in the country’s stratified caste system. Although elected village bodies were established by the Indian government in 1992, unelected clan councils continue to operate with impunity throughout rural India, issuing their own edicts in the name of preserving harmony. Five years after the Supreme Court said such councils should be illegal, the central government and some states are only beginning to pass or contemplate laws that would limit their behavior.

These councils often prevent or break up marriages and love affairs between couples from different castes, and they have instigated honor killings. Women typically receive the harshest punishments. They also intervene in cases of sexual assault — mediating resolutions between two families, attempting to smooth over devastating wounds with a few hundred rupees, and even in some cases forcing a victim to marry her rapist. Amid international outrage about the 2012 fatal gang rape of a Delhi student, laws were passed to make it easier for rape victims to file charges. But the road to the police station is still a long one.

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You are the Guru of ressurecting old threads.

 

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Granny says throw the book at `em...

Men accused of raping woman in Rohtak for second time due in court
Wed Jul 20, 2016 - Three men accused of raping a woman for a second time were due in court on Wednesday, police said, while the victim's father said his daughter was determined to pursue the case despite the state's failure to protect her.

Prosecutors accuse the men of raping the woman, a 20-year-old member of the lower-caste Dalit community, in the city of Rohtak last week. The men include two who were arrested for raping her in 2013 and currently out on bail as the case edged its way through India's creaking legal system, police said, while the third was also accused of the earlier attack. "We will be collecting DNA samples from the victim and the three accused to ascertain whether the allegations are true... The three arrested, they are the same men who had raped her earlier," said Pushpa Khatri, the investigating officer, adding that the woman was in a stable condition. The family have told Indian media that the men had threatened to rape her again as "punishment" for not agreeing to an out-of-court settlement.

Sexual violence against women is a highly sensitive issue in India, where the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 sparked deep soul-searching about entrenched violence against women and the failure of authorities to protect them. India has enacted tougher jail sentences for rapists and promised to try those accused through "fast-track" courts but rape, acid attacks and domestic violence remain common. An inefficient and underfunded judicial system, particularly outside big cities, and a patriarchal society also mean many victims are scared to come forward and when they do prosecutions move slowly, if at all.

Members of the Dalit community, who occupy the lowest-rung of India's centuries-old social hierarchy, can find it particularly difficult to seek justice because of their poor economic status. The three accused in the Rohtak case will appear in court on Wednesday where police will ask for them to be remanded in custody so they can continue their interrogations, said Sanjay Kumar, Rohtak police inspector general. The victim's father told Reuters that his daughter was determined to fight the case and after the second incident had told him: "I will not give up."

Men accused of raping woman in Rohtak for second time due in court

 

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Granny says dey oughta hang `em by dey's yin-yangs...

Indian men accused of raping woman for second time as payback for filing earlier charges
July 21, 2016 - Several men in India accused of gang-raping the same young woman for a second time are alleged to have done so as payback for their low-caste victim filing charges against them.

Indian police arrested three suspects, some of whom had been charged with a previous attack on the woman, an officer said. The men include two who were arrested for raping her in 2013 and were currently out on bail as the case edged its way through India's creaking legal system, police said, while the third was also accused of the earlier attack. "We will be collecting DNA samples from the victim and the three accused to ascertain whether the allegations are true ... the three arrested, they are the same men who had raped her earlier," said Pushpa Khatri, the investigating officer.

India was again soul searching as the fresh details emerged in the horrifying case of sexual and caste violence combined. Women's rights campaigners in India said they wanted MPs to do more to change the country's culture, instead of pursuing continually tougher punishments for attackers. "Whenever a rape case grabs attention, including this latest one in Rohtak, the tendency is to concentrate on how you can introduce draconian measures against the accused, so death penalty for the accused," said Kavita Krishnan from the All-India Progressive Women's Association. "And now there's a whole media campaign in certain sections of the media for how you should deny bail to every rape accused."

Ms Krishnan said that was taking the easy option. "Focus on the survivor, focus on empowering the survivor, and supporting her, so that cases can actually be followed through because after all she is the person on whom that entire case rests," she said.

Rights campaigners call for end to rape case settlements

 

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Not enough protection for rape victims in India...

Rape survivor: Not enough protection for victims in India
Wed July 20, 2016 - Brutal details have emerged of the drugging and gang-rape of a 21-year-old Dalit girl on her way home from college in the northern state of Haryana, India. Dalits are often relegated to the lowest rungs of Indian society.

Left for dead, the girl was taken to hospital by a passerby, where she told police that two of her attackers had sexually assaulted her 3 years previously. The perpetrators were arrested in November 2013 and jailed, but the victim's family members told police they were forced to move after receiving threats from the suspects and their friends, pressuring them to withdraw the case. The two suspects were released last month. The incident has caused an international outcry and shone a light on the frequency of sexual violence incidents in the South Asian nation, specifically with regards to women from the lower castes. We spoke to mental health professional, social activist and gang-rape survivor Dr. Sunitha Krishnan about the current situation in India, and how an event like this could possibly take place:

How can a woman be raped twice by the same people?

"There are two issues here. Firstly, India doesn't have an effective enough mechanism to protect victim witnesses. There is a strong need for a witness protection program, because victims that choose to fight back are intimidated by perpetrators. "Some of them get murdered, some of them struggle through all their life. There's no system to provide support and protection for these victims. This is one of the biggest problems. "The second problem is we don't yet have a register available and in the public domain that enables us to track an offender, even if he is out on bail.
"Just a few weeks back, here in Hyderabad, a man with at least 17 cases pending against him was released after his conviction, and the very next day he allegedly raped and murdered a 10-year-old girl. "What happened in Rohtak is nothing new. The problem is that nobody is keeping watch on offenders who have already demonstrated deviant sexual behavior.

"In my view, they shouldn't be given bail at all. Once they are convicted, they can take their case to the high court. And once it's admitted for appeal, they can get bail again. "Today there are stringent laws in place -- we have the criminal law amendment act in 2013 -- but with these laws the victim's position is becoming more precarious. "The offender knows that if the victim testifies, the penalty is either life or capital punishment. So that can result in victims getting killed. That has to end. These offenders have to be kept in jail until their punishment is completed. This is the kind of amendment we require in law today, because without it, no victims will have the courage to be bold and speak out."

How much does this case have to do with the caste system?

 

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Rohtak rape victim tracked down for revenge...

Family of an Indian student gang raped twice in THREE years claim same men attacked her again to 'get revenge'
21 July 2016 - Student, 20, allegedly gang-raped by same men twice in three years; Five men told her they would not 'let you leave this time', it is claimed; Family told MailOnline how they had fled their home to avoid repeat attack; Described her 'extreme trauma' and how police had failed to protect her

The family of a woman gang raped twice in three years by the same men say she was attacked the second time to get revenge for going to police. Five men waited outside her school, dragged her into their car and drove to a remote location and took turns to rape her in the first attack. But after she reported the rape to police, the same men tracked her down again and brutally assaulted her again - telling her: 'You b****, we've trapped you again and we will not let you leave this time'. 'My daughter is suffering extreme trauma and has fallen into severe depression,' her mother told MailOnline, from her daughter's hospital bedside. 'She just stares at the walls. She doesn't even blink her eyes, never mind sleep. It is simply traumatic to see my daughter in this condition.'

Target: The 20-year-old student told how she was raped again, by a group of five men who first attacked her three years ago. She is now recovering in a hospital in the city of Rohtak​

She was 17 in 2013 when she was first attacked by the men in her hometown in Haryana State, India. Two of the five accused attackers were arrested, but were later released on bail. The remaining three escaped with just a High Court summons. The rich gang tried to pay off her family, offering them £56,500 in return for dropping the allegations against them. Unable to live knowing her attackers were still in the town, her family left their home and fled 40 miles away to the city of Rohtak. They hoped to escape the embarrassment suffered by rape victims in rural India - made worse by the fact the family is from the 'untouchable' Dalit caste, India's lowest social rung.

Horrific: The woman's mother revealed she is suffering 'extreme trauma' and has been unable to eat or stop crying since the attack on July 13​

But her worst fears came true last week, when the men targeted her again. 'We left Bhiwani to hide from my daughter's attackers because we were constantly threatened by them,' added her mother. 'I am ashamed of the fact that we live in a country where the victim has to hide while the criminal manages to roam free because they have money. 'But this time, I will not give up. 'They raped my daughter again and I will not surrender this time. I will fight for justice until my last breath. 'She has not eaten anything since last Wednesday. She fears they will kill all of us. 'She is barely able to talk and is in severe pain in her lower body. She can't control her tears whenever we ask her anything. 'All she has said since then is that she wants to see all of them hanged to death.'

Family: The woman's brother told how the gang of wealthy men tried to pay her in return for dropping her allegations against them, but the woman refused​

After the attack she was found naked and unconscious in a park by a passerby who called the police. She was taken to a government hospital before being transferred to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGI) hospital, in Rohtak. Her brother said: 'After the two criminals were released on bail the first time round, they started tracking us and threatening us to close the case and settle out of court for £56,500. 'But we refused as we wanted justice not money. We had no choice but to leave Bhiwani but we had no idea they would find us again. 'My sister demands justice and we will settle for nothing else. 'They tortured her both physically and mentally. They told her "You b****, we've trapped you again and we will not leave you this time". 'They told her that they will kill all of us and she fears for everyone's life now.'

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