Our Correspondent / Ranchi
Jharkhand police have arrested 14 people on Saturday over the alleged rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in Chatara district of BJP ruled state.
The crime is the latest in a string of brutal assaults against young girls in different parts of the country. despite moves to toughen laws punishing sexual violence there is nolet up in such crime in recent times.
Officials said a group of men abducted the teenager from the Chatra district on Thursday, took her to a remote area and raped her.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act has been invoked against the accused as the victim was a minor.
“Gang-rape charges have been invoked against the accused, but we will wait for the post-mortem report before arriving at any conclusion,” said Bokaro range inspector general of police Shambhu Thakur.
The district administration has constituted a medical board for conducting an autopsy of the half-burnt body, he added.
The girl’s father then complained to the village council, which ordered the accused to pay a fine of 50,000 rupees and do 100 situps.
The suspects allegedly returned the next day to beat up the girl’s family members before pouring kerosene on her and setting her on fire.
Medical tests are being conducted to confirm the sexual assault.
14 people are in custody, but police say other key suspects are still on the run.
The issue of sexual violence in India has received widespread attention since the fatal gang rape of a young medical student on a bus in the capital New Delhi in 2012.
The brutal crime highlighted the issue of women’s safety in India and prompted changes to laws governing sexual crimes. In recent months, the country has again been shaken by a series of violent sexual assaults against young girls, including the rape and murder of an 8-year-old in Jammu and Kashmir. The cases have led to an outpouring of public anger, with mass protests demanding the perpetrators face justice.
According to official statistics, around 40,000 rape cases were reported in India in 2016. That amounts to over 100 per day, but many more incidents are believed to go unreported. About 40 percent of the cases involve child rape.
Last month, government approved stricter punishments for sexual violence against young girls, including the death penalty for those convicted of raping children under the age of 12. They also backed doubling the jail term for someone convicted of raping an adult to 20 years and enacted laws criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women.