NEW DELHI: Jolting the city out of its holiday slumber, a 20-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and later thrashed, tonsured, garlanded with shoes and paraded with blackened face through crowded streets in full public view on Wednesday.
Identifying it as a case of personal enmity, police have arrested seven women and apprehended two boys after the humiliation was captured in a viral video in which some women are seen beating the woman while others cheer and egg on the perpetrators.
The woman has alleged that she was violated by three men in the presence of several women who instigated the men to rape her. Her crime, according to her perpetrators, was abetting the suicide of one of their family members.
The Delhi Commission of Women said the woman was beaten brutally and has injury marks all over her body. She informed the Commission that the accused were involved in illegal drugs and liquor cartel.
"Seven women have been arrested so far and two delinquents have been apprehended so far. The investigation is underway and we will soon come to a conclusion in the matter," DCP Shahdara R Sathiyasundaram said.
The medical report is yet to ascertain the crime of rape as alleged by the girl, he added. Twelve sections of the IPC, including abduction and gang-rape have been added to the case.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and DCW chief Swati Maliwal were among those who have condemned the heinous act on Thursday. Maliwal issued a notice to the Delhi Police seeking immediate arrests of all those involved in the case. The Commission has also provided a shelter to the woman and her husband.
The case was a result after a youth, identified as Ayush, committed suicide on railway track on November 12 after being rejected by the woman. Subsequently, the woman and her younger sister were being hounded by the family members of Ayush.
"Ayush was after her and was asking her to leave her husband and marry him instead but she did not do the same and on November 12 when he committed suicide, from the next day onwards, Ayush’s family members started troubling and blaming us for his death," the woman’s younger sister claimed.
"Since November, they were after our lives and were beating us and threatening us. They were also looking for my elder sister," she added.
On Wednesday, the perpetrators allegedly got hold of the woman when she had come to meet her father. In the evening they also beat up the bed-ridden father, alleged one of the relatives of the family.