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| Protesters call for better safety for women in India |
A 17-year-old Indian girl who was
gang-raped killed herself after police pressured her to drop the case and marry
one of her attackers, police and a relative said on Thursday [Dec. 27].
Amid the ongoing uproar over the
gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi earlier this month, the latest
case has again shone the spotlight on the police's handling of sex crimes.
One police officer has been sacked
and another suspended over their conduct after the assault during the festival
of Diwali on November 13 in the Patiala region in the Punjab, according to
officials.
The teenager was found dead on
Wednesday [Dec. 26] night after swallowing poison.
Her death came as it emerged that
the names, addresses and photographs of convicted rapists will be posted online
by police in India to publicly shame them for their crimes.
Inspector General Paramjit Singh
Gill said that the teenager had been "running
from pillar to post to get her case registered" but officers
failed to open a formal inquiry.
"One
of the officers tried to convince her to withdraw the case", Gill, the police chief for the area,
told AFP.
Before her death, there had been no
arrests over her case although three people were detained on Thursday. Two of
them were her alleged male attackers and the third was a suspected woman
accomplice.
The victim's sister told Indian
television that the teenager had been urged to either accept a cash settlement
or marry one of her attackers.
"The
police started pressuring her to either reach a financial settlement with her
attackers or marry one of them", her sister told the NDTV network.
Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India
reported that a police officer has been suspended for allegedly refusing to
register a rape complaint in the northern state of Chhattisgar. The woman and
her husband later brought the case to the attention of a more senior officer
and a hunt has now been launched for her attacker, an auto rickshaw driver.
Official figures show that 228,650
of the total 256,329 violent crimes recorded last year in India were against
women.
The real figure is thought to be
much higher as so many women are reluctant to report attacks to the police.
During an address to the chief
ministers of India's states on Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged
to bring in new laws to cover attacks on women.
- SkyNews
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