The father, uncle and brother of a 16-year-old girl in eastern India have been arrested accused of raping her repeatedly over a period of two years, police said on Saturday.
The girl told a school teacher in Dhupguri, West Bengal, on Thursday after being too scared to speak out previously. She was taken to the police where she registered a complaint against the three men on Friday.
“Her father, a farmer aged around 50, allegedly raped her several times. She alleged that her uncle also raped her and of late her brother had also started,” police spokesman K.L. Sherpa in Jalpaiguri district said.
Police said the victim claimed she got pregnant twice, but was forced to have abortions and that she attempted suicide four times. Her mother knew but kept silent, police said. The teenager is now in the custody of her aunt.
From child marriage and dowry killings to rape and domestic violence, Indian girls and women face numerous threats, say experts, largely because of age-old patriarchal attitudes that view them as inferior to men.
Public protests after the fatal gang rape of a woman on a Delhi bus in December 2012 jolted many in the world’s second-most populous country out of apathy and forced the government to enact stiffer penalties on gender crimes.
Since then, voracious reporting by the media, campaigns by the government and programs by civil society groups have brought greater public awareness of women’s rights and emboldened more victims to come forward and register abuses.
In 2013 Indian authorities received 309,546 reports of crimes against women, a 26.7 percent jump from 2012, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS