CHANDIGARH: A 21-year-old Dalit student of Rohtak has been gangraped for a second time in three years by two of the five accused charged with sexually assaulting her earlier allegedly after she refused to accept an out-of-court settlement.
Police have rounded-up the two accused in the case and are questioning them.
The college-going daughter of a poor charpoy-maker was first raped in 2013 in Bhiwani. It was allegedly after the accused had threatened the woman’s family that it shifted to Rohtak from Bhiwani district.
The police said the victim’s family told them she had gone to college on Wednesday morning and did not return. The five accused allegedly abducted the girl from outside her college, drove to a nearby place and gang-raped her. They left her to die in bushes in Sukhpura Chowk, where she lay unconscious with her clothes torn before being seen by a passerby and taken to hospital, said police sources. “The victim has told us that she was kidnapped by the accused when she was standing at the college gate on Wednesday. She told us that they took her away in their car and raped her..,” Rohtak DSP Pushpa Khatri said.
On the complaint of the girl, the police have booked Sandeep Singh, Mausam Kumar, Bittu, Raju and Akash on rape charges. All the accused are former students of the same college where the woman studies. While four of them are small-time businessmen, one has a private job and the last is unemployed. Three of them were in jail for committing the crime in 2013 and are out on bail.
They had allegedly been pressuring the girl’s family for an out-of-court settlement. Police sources said that the two accused had been rounded up and were being questioned.
Members of the Dalit caste the victim belonged to held small protests in Rohtak on Sunday to demand justice for her.
The fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012 shone a global spotlight on frightening levels of violence against women in the country.
It also led to major reform of rape laws, including the speeding up of trials and increased punishments for offenders, but horrific attacks continue to be reported on a daily basis.
The most recent official figures show that 36,735 rapes were reported across the country in 2014, although activists say the true number is likely much higher because of the social stigma attached to sexual crimes.