Google – AFP, Sailendra Sil (AFP), 23 January 2014
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Protesters
carry posters and shout slogans during a march against the gang-rape
and murder
of a teenager, in Kolkata on January 3, 2014 (AFP/File, Dibyangshu Sarkar)
|
Kolkata —
Indian police have arrested 13 people over the gang-rape of a 20-year-old
woman, who was allegedly assaulted on the orders of tribal elders, police said
Thursday.
The attack
on Tuesday took place in a remote village in West Bengal state where the
unmarried woman from the Santhal tribal group was suspected of a relationship
with a Muslim man from a neighbouring village.
The elders,
who comprise the informal village council, initially imposed a fine of 25,000
rupees (400 dollars) on her family, but they were unable to pay, district
police superintendent C. Sudhakar told AFP.
"The
girl was gang-raped for having an affair with a youth of another community and
failing to pay the fine which was imposed by the village council," he
said.
 |
Candles are
seen during a meeting by
Indian activists to protest against the
gangrape and
murder of a teenager in
Kolkata on January 2, 2014 (AFP/File,
Dibyangshu
Sarkar)
|
Tribal or
caste-based village councils composed of elders exert enormous influence over
rural life, particularly in northern India, often issuing diktats and
punishments for moral and other perceived offences.
The attack
again casts India's record on sexual violence into the spotlight after national
outrage over the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012.
The
incident also echoes an attack on a woman in neighbouring Pakistan in 2002 on
orders of a village council to avenge her 12-year-old brother's alleged
impropriety with a woman from a rival clan.
Six men
were sentenced to death for the rape of the illiterate Pakistani woman Mukhtar
Maiher in a landmark ruling there. But five were later acquitted and the main
culprit had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment.
'Tied to
trees'
The
incident in India took place in Subalpur village, about 240 kilometres (149
miles) west of state capital Kolkata, after the couple were discovered
together.
"The
head of the village council held an urgent meeting in the village square on
Tuesday when the girl and her lover were called," Sudhakar said.
"The
girl and her lover were tied to two separate trees and fined 25,000 rupees each
as a fine for having an affair," he said.
"As
the parents of the girl, who were also present at the meeting, expressed their
inability to pay the fine, the head of the village council ordered that she
should be raped by the villagers as punishment," he said.
The man was
freed after he agreed to pay the fine within a week, but the woman was taken to
a shed where the attack was carried out, he said.
The woman,
who was recovering in a local hospital in Birbhum district, identified to
police all 13 attackers. They are expected to appear in a district session
court in the nearby town of Bolpur later Thursday, Sudhakar said.
Last month,
India marked the first anniversary of the death of the 23-year-old student who
was gang-raped in New Delhi on a moving bus, in an attack that sent shockwaves
across the nation.
Despite
tougher laws and efforts to change attitudes to women in India's deeply
patriarchal society, the number of reported sex crimes continues to rise.
In West
Bengal's capital Kolkata, a teenager was gang-raped last year in two separate attacks
and then died after being set on fire, sparking protests.
The
16-year-old was assaulted on October 26 and then again the next day by a group
of six men near her family's home. She was later set on fire and died in a
hospital on New Year's Eve.
Earlier
this month, a Danish woman was allegedly gang-raped and robbed in the capital
New Delhi after she became lost on her way back to her hotel. Six men
have been arrested over that attack.
 |
Indian
police escort men tied with rope who are accused
of a gang-rape in Birbhum
district. Photograph: Reuters
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