Adding to the list of violent crimes against women in India in the past two weeks, a woman was allegedly raped in a police station.
News of the rape comes as another woman was found hanging from a tree on Thursday in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh. Police say they suspect the woman was raped before being murdered, bringing the number of rapes reported in the past 36 hours to five in the state, including two other young women who were also gang-raped and then killed.
“The sub-inspector accused of committing the rape of the woman has been put under arrest while we have launched a manhunt for the three constables accused of being party to the crime,” a spokesman at state police headquarters said.
The latest reports come after two girls, aged 12 and 14, were gang-raped and hanged from a tree on May 27, the day after Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister.
The two cousins, from a low-caste community, went missing from their home in Uttar Pradesh when they went to an outdoor toilet. The next morning, villagers found their bodies hanging from a mango tree in a nearby orchard.
According to Reuters:
Workers from Modi’s party clashed with police when they tried to march on the office of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to protest against the violence, and opposition parties have demanded Yadav’s dismissal.
Yadav has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the country’s top crime-fighting agency, to investigate the case. The CBI on Thursday said it registered a case against three people and two police officials.
In a speech delivered to parliament on Wednesday, Modi said India needed to protect and respect women and that the government needed to act. Just last week, however, a senior member of Modi’s own party said rape was a social issue, and “sometimes right, sometimes wrong.”
SOURCE Reuters | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
