Vigil in memorial of rape victim (Archive)
Photo: AP
India: Group kidnaps, rapes 4 schoolgirls
Months after anti-rape protests swept India demanding harsher punishment for rapists, eight men arrested for breaking into convent boarding house, kidnapping 4 girls, raping them
Indian police arrested eight suspects on Tuesday over the gang-rape
of four schoolgirls abducted from their convent boarding house in the country's east, officials said.
A group of men armed with knives barged into the hostel Sunday night and kidnapped the girls aged between 12 and 14, before assaulting them in a nearby forest in the tribal state of Jharkhand, a police officer said.
Related stories:
- India: Man arrested for rape of 5-year-old
- India villagers demand progress in fatal rape case
- India detains Israeli caught with rifle bullets
"We have made some arrests and we are interrogating eight persons accused in the case," police superintendent Y. S. Ramesh told AFP.
"These girls are shocked and frightened after the incident," he said, adding that police would press for a speedy trial if the men were charged over the crime.
India faces intense scrutiny over its efforts to curb violence against women following the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi last December which sparked major protests.
Anti-rape culture protests. Archive. (Photo: EPA)
The school principal told police that the gang locked him and other teachers inside a room at the school run by a Christian missionary in the state's Pakur district.
The men then entered the dormitory and took away four girls, all belonging to a local tribal community, police said.
Ramesh said medical tests on the girls had confirmed that they were raped.
Mass protests erupted nationwide in December and January following the fatal gang-rape, which brought simmering anger about the treatment of women in India to the surface.
Parliament has passed laws aimed at better protecting women, including doubling the minimum prison sentence for gang-rape to 20 years.
Jharkhand is a densely forested state comprising large numbers of indigenous people.
- Receive Ynetnews updates
directly to your desktop
