LUCKNOW: Police said yesterday that they were investigating a spate of rapes and hangings in a troubled northern region, as the national women’s rights body called for the state government to resign over the crisis.
India has been trying to restore its battered reputation for violence against women, but public outrage was reignited by the deaths last month of two girls, aged 12 and 14, who were gang-raped and lynched in their impoverished village in Uttar Pradesh.
On Wednesday, a woman said she had been gang-raped by four officers at a police station in the state, and police said they were also investigating the death of a 19-year-old found, like the two girls, hanging from a tree.
“The body was strung up using the girl’s dupatta (long scarf),” senior police superintendent Ashutosh Kumar said, adding the incident occurred in a village in Moradabad district. “The FIR (first information report) was lodged by the girl’s brother against unidentified persons. He has alleged the girl was murdered,” Kumar said.
Her husband said she was singled out for attack as she returned home in Bahraich district as punishment for trying to halt the sale of alcohol in her area. “My wife used to fight against the local liquor mafia. They created a ruckus here every other day and attacked you if you said anything to them,” her husband told NDTV.
“We have detained four of the five men accused and are interrogating them,” district superintendent Happy Guptan said.
The case is the latest in a series of attacks in Uttar Pradesh whose chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is under mounting political pressure to resign over his handling of law and order.
Mamata Sharma, head of the state-run National Commission for Women, urged Yadav to resign, calling his government’s failure to protect women “shameful”.
But Yadav, speaking on a visit to New Delhi, insisted that the situation was no worse than elsewhere in the country. “Law and order is an important issue for any state. The government is working to maintain law and order,” he said.
In southwest Uttar Pradesh, the woman who alleged she was raped by four officers at a police station said the attack occurred as she was trying to seek her husband’s release. The woman filed a complaint against the sub-inspector and three other officers, alleging she was attacked in Hamirpur district when she refused to pay them a bribe, police said.
Although police said they were investigating, they cast doubt on her allegations. District Inspector General Amitabh Yash also said a report of her medical examination showed the woman suffered no injuries, the PTI reported.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged all politicians to work together to protect women, in his first comments on the issue since the hanging of the girls sparked public outrage.
Modi warned politicians against “politicising rape”, saying they were “playing with the dignity of women” in his first speech to parliament since sweeping to power at last month’s national elections.
The appeal came ahead of a scheduled meeting between chief minister Yadav and Modi in Delhi.
Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 200 million, has a history of communal clashes and violence. The state recorded 23,569 crimes against women in 2012, the third highest in the country, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
AFP
