Indian teenager burned to death after two gang-rapes

An Indian teenager was gang-raped in two separate attacks and then died after being set on fire, sparking protests in the eastern city of Calcutta, police said.

The 16-year-old was first attacked on Oct 26 and again the day after by a group of more than six men near her family home in Madhyagram, about 25km north of Calcutta.

The second gang-rape occurred as she was returning home after reporting the first attack at a police station. She was then set on fire on Dec 23 and died in a state-run hospital late on New Year’s Eve.

“She gave us a dying declaration in front of the health officials that she was set on fire by two persons close to the accused when she was alone at home on Dec 23,” said local policeman Nimbala Santosh Uttamrao.

Police made their first arrests this week, two months after the initial crime, local police chief Rajiv Kumar said.

“The accused tried to kill my daughter by setting her on fire to hush up their crimes,” said the victim’s father, a migrant taxi driver from India’s poorest state, Bihar.

Neither he nor the victim can be named.

Several hundred activists protested in Kolkata over the crime, which was shocking in its brutality, even after a year when sex crimes have been widely reported in India.

Rampant rape, assault, and harassment of women in India was in the spotlight in the past 12 months after the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in Dec 2012 sparked nationwide outrage.

The parliament has since passed tougher laws to punish rapists.

Activists say rape victims in India often face severe threats and intimidation from their attackers after the assault, while police often discourage them from lodging complaints

Vigils and prayers last Sunday marked the first anniversary of the death of the student savagely gang-raped on a bus.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died on Dec 29, 2012, nearly two weeks after being attacked by a gang of six men on a moving bus as she returned home from the cinema in New Delhi with a male companion.

The attack and her subsequent death shook the country, shone a global spotlight on India’s treatment of women and unleashed seething public anger about sexual violence and harassment of women.

The victim’s family held a religious ceremony in their ancestral village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, away from the constant media attention they have faced since the attack, her brother said.

“We held prayers in memory of our sister,” the brother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said. He said his family wanted to remember her “in a quiet way, away from all the glare”.

The student, who was repeatedly assaulted with an iron rod during her ordeal, has been praised for her determination to report her attackers to the police before she died of her injuries.

Although the brother welcomed reforms to police and judicial systems since his sister’s death, he said still more changes were needed, including a further shift in society’s attitudes towards women.

“We do think that society as a whole still needs to change its mindset and even women should become more careful about their safety,” he said.

The angry and sometimes violent protests against the attack jolted India’s parliament, which this year passed tougher laws against rapists and other sexual offenders.