A police officer in India has been arrested after being accused of raping a 13-year-old woman who went to his station to report she had been gang-raped.
The alleged incident is the newest to highlight the excessive ranges of sexual violence on the planet's largest democracy, the place a girl is raped each 18 minutes on common.
The woman can be a member of India's Dalit group, which has lengthy suffered from marginalization and violence by the hands of upper castes whereas getting little assist from police.
In response to her father, she was gang-raped by 4 males final month over a number of days.
However when she tried to file a criticism final week, the station home officer in cost raped her, in response to an NGO now offering her with counseling.
Police mentioned the officer was arrested on Wednesday together with 4 different folks and the woman's aunt, who was reportedly contained in the station home room when she was attacked.
Twenty-nine different officers current on the police station within the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on the time of the alleged assault have been suspended from responsibility.
Information of the incident has triggered outrage on Indian social media.
"If police stations usually are not protected for girls, then the place will they go to complain?" tweeted Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a senior member of the opposition Congress Occasion.
"Has the (Uttar Pradesh) authorities critically thought of growing the deployment of feminine officers in police stations to make them protected for girls?"
India has lengthy been stricken by sexual violence in opposition to ladies. In January, police within the Indian capital arrested 11 folks, together with 9 ladies, after the alleged brutal gang rape and torture of a younger lady that included her being paraded by the streets and humiliated.
Final yr, a 34-year-old lady in Mumbai died after being raped and brutally tortured — bringing again reminiscences of the 2012 Delhi rape and homicide of a younger medical pupil, which sparked huge protests and made worldwide headlines.
India's rape legal guidelines and sentencing tips had been overhauled after the 2012 assault. However the variety of offenses stays excessive, with greater than 28,000 rapes reported in 2020, in response to the newest official information, which is regarded as simply the tip of the iceberg.