Monday, June 20, 2011

A woman has been gang raped and burnt alive in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police say, the latest in a series of brutal attacks on women there

The woman's family say that five men gang-raped her and then set her alight in her own home in Etah district. Recently there have been three violent attacks on women in the state. Uttar Pradesh is one of India's most lawless states where women are accorded a very low status. A 14-year-old girl was stabbed in the eye as she fought off two men who attempted to rape her. The teenager was attacked in Gadwa Buzurg village in the Kannauj district of the northern state. She lost one eye and the other was also seriously damaged. Police say that the attackers were from her own village. Only one has been arrested so far and police said that they were looking for the second man. Two policemen in the area, who initially refused to lodge the parents' complaint, have been suspended. Also, a girl's body was found hanging from a tree on police premises in the Nighasan area of Lakhimpur district. The girl's parents say that she was raped and murdered and that the police had offered them a bribe to keep quiet. In the latest incident the woman, who was in her thirties, was sitting outside her home when five men dragged her inside the house and gang-raped her, according to her family. Her family say that the attackers sprinkled kerosene on her and set her on fire because the woman had recognized them and that they were afraid of being caught. The woman managed to give a statement to police but died shortly afterwards. Police say that they are are still looking for the attackers. Earlier in 2011, the head of the National Commission for Women, Girija Vyas, said that Uttar Pradesh was at the top of the list when it came to violent crimes against women.

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