15 arrested in India after girl raped, burned to death

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Indian police said Sunday they had arrested 15 people following the rape of a 16-year-old girl, who was later burned alive, in the latest brutal rape case to make national headlines.

Police said they had arrested 14 men and a woman, including the main rape suspect, who was found hiding at a relative's house. The local village chief was also detained.

The girl’s rape, which occurred on Thursday in eastern Jharkhand state, was the latest to shine a spotlight on how India handles sexual violence cases.

Relatives mourn following the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl at Raja Kundra village in Chatra district, Jharkhand, India, May 5, 2018. /VCG Photo

After the girl’s parents complained of the rape, the local village council ordered the main suspect, named Dhanu Bhuiyan, to do 100 sit-ups and pay a 50,000 rupee (750 US dollars) fine, police said.

The accused reportedly became enraged by the punishment and, along with accomplices, attacked the girl's parents before setting their house on fire with the girl inside. She died from injuries sustained in the fire.

The victim's family has now been given special police protection, and police inspector general Shambhu Thakur told AFP news agency: "We are on the case and we promise the family that the guilty won't be spared."

Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das also called for stringent punishment in the "barbaric" case and announced compensation of 100,000 rupees (1,500 US dollars) for the victim's family.

Among those detained on Sunday were members of the village council, including its head since he "announced a punishment that led to the murder," according to Thakur.

Village councils of elders often settle disputes in rural India, bypassing a lengthy and expensive judicial system. Although they carry no legal weight, they exert massive daily influence.

This photograph taken on May 5, 2018, shows a general view of the location of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl on May 3 at Raja Kundra village, Chatra district, Jharkhand, India. /VCG Photo

Indian police also said Sunday they had arrested half a dozen suspects for the alleged gang rape of a 14-year-old in Odisha state, and for the separate rape in Jharkhand of a 17-year old girl, who was then set on fire by her assailant.

Indian authorities have faced renewed pressure to act over sexual assault since the recent gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl by a group of Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir state.

Amid mounting outrage, India approved the death penalty for the rape of girls under 12 and increased the prison term for the rape of older girls and women.

But the Jammu case has revived communal tensions.

Hindu groups have held regular protests saying that the police inquiry was biased against the accused. Muslim activists have in turn taken to the streets to demand justice for the dead girl, who was held in a Hindu temple and repeatedly raped over five days before being killed, according to police.

On Sunday, protesters backing the suspects hurled stones at the car of a Jammu and Kashmir state minister, Sham Lal Chaudhary, demanding a new inquiry into the case, media reports said.

Reports of sexual violence have been steadily rising in India despite the national outrage that followed the fatal gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012.

Some 40,000 rape cases were reported in 2016, with many more believed to go unreported because of the stigma attached to sex crimes in deeply patriarchal India.

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Source(s): AFP ,Reuters