Can't stop rapes:
"Swiss tourist raped by four men in India
NEW DELHI — A Swiss woman on a cycling tour with her husband was raped by four men Friday night in Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state famed for its ancient temples and palaces, the police said Saturday. The woman, 39, and her husband, were camping in a forest about 400 yards from a road near the town of Datia when they were attacked and beaten by seven or eight men, said Dalip Arya, deputy inspector general for the Chambal area of Madhya Pradesh state. The couple were making their way from Orchha to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, the police said (New York Times)."
"Indian police arrest five in rape case; Search on for two others in assault on Swiss tourists" Associated Press, March 18, 2013
NEW DELHI — Police said they arrested five men Sunday in connection with the rape of a Swiss woman who was attacked in central India while on a cycling vacation with her husband.
All five men admitted to the attack, which occurred Friday night as the woman and her husband camped out in a forest in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh state, said D.K. Arya, a senior police officer.
Arya said the men, who are from nearby villages, were arrested in Datia. Police were searching for two other men believed to have been involved in the attack, he said.
The couple told police that the woman had been raped by seven or eight men, but that it was dark and they could not be sure of the exact number, Arya said. They said the husband also was attacked by the men....
The attack came three months after the multiple rape and killing of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus outraged Indians, and was front-page news in Indian newspapers on Saturday....
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Related: Indian Gang Bang
"6 arraigned in rape of Swiss tourist" Associated Press, March 19, 2013
NEW DELHI — Six men accused of raping a Swiss tourist who was cycling with her husband in central India were produced in court Monday and charged with the crime.
The suspects appeared in the magistrate’s court in Madhya Pradesh state with their faces covered with black cloth, police superintendent Chandra Shekhar Solanki said.
It was not clear how they pleaded in court, but during their arrest Sunday they confessed, police said. The men, who are poor farmers from nearby villages, also face additional charges of robbing the Swiss couple.
The attack, which occurred Friday night as the couple camped in a forest in Datia district, came three months after the fatal gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus, which spurred outrage over the treatment of women in Indian society and the country’s justice system.
And a handful or more of other cases that were not considered as newsworthy.
The Swiss couple told police that the woman had been raped by seven or eight men, but that it was dark and they could not be sure of the exact number.
The men beat up the husband and tied him to a tree before raping the woman, police said. They also stole the couple’s cellphone, laptop computer, and $185. Police said they recovered the laptop and phone from one of the suspects.
The Swiss tourists were on a three-month India vacation and had visited the temple town of Orchha. They were planning to cycle to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, about 130 miles away.
They set out from Orchha on Friday and pitched their tent in the forest near Jatia village, when they were attacked by men armed with sticks, police said.
On Monday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported that the 39-year-old woman said she will stay in India to help the investigation.
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"Tourist leaps from hotel to flee rape in India" by Rama Lakshmi | The Washington Post News Service, March 20, 2013
NEW DELHI — A British tourist jumped off a balcony of her hotel room to escape being sexually assaulted by the hotel owner in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, police said Tuesday.
The tourist fractured her leg when she jumped from the second floor.
Subhash Chand Dubey, a police officer, told reporters that the owner knocked on her door at 4 a.m., offered her a massage, and refused to leave, even after she declined. The hotel owner then tried to enter her room, and the tourist jumped off the balcony to escape, Dubey said, adding that the hotel owner was arrested.
The incident comes three days after a Swiss woman was gang-raped when she was bicycling through central India with her husband.
In spite of the massive nationwide protest against the fatal gang rape of a young woman in New Delhi in December, the number of rape incidents continues to rise.
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At least someone got it up:
"Doubts follow jail death in India; Rape suspect was killed, lawyer says" by Ravi Nessman | Associated Press, March 12, 2013
NEW DELHI — Whether he was killed or committed suicide, the jailhouse death Monday of a man on trial in the gang rape and fatal beating of a woman on a New Delhi bus is being viewed as an enormous security failure at one of India’s best-known prisons.
Authorities said Ram Singh, who was accused of driving the bus during the December attack, was in a cell with three other inmates at Tihar Jail in New Delhi when he hanged himself either with his own clothes or a bedsheet about 5:30 a.m. ‘‘This is suicide,’’ Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said.
Uh-huh. Or someone had him killed.
Singh’s family and lawyer alleged foul play, saying the suspect was in a good frame of mind and had an arm injury that would have made it impossible for him to tie a noose.
‘‘There were no circumstances which could have led to Ram Singh committing suicide. There was no mental stress. He was very happy [about the trial’s course],’’ his lawyer, V.K. Anand, said.
Yeah, he only drove the bus!
Singh, 33, had been among five defendants facing the death penalty if convicted of the rape attack, which horrified Indians and set off national protests. A sixth accused is being tried and jailed separately because he is a juvenile.
Singh’s death in custody raised further questions about a criminal justice system already under attack for failing to protect the nation’s women. ‘‘It’s a grave incident,’’ said Shinde, the nation’s top law enforcement official. ‘‘It’s a major lapse.’’
The government had ordered a magistrate’s inquiry and would take action after it received the report, he said.
Kiran Bedi, the former director of the jail and now an activist, said prison officials had a moral and legal obligation to ensure Singh’s safety, and she expressed surprise that authorities had not been monitoring him with cameras.
‘‘You are duty bound to protect the lives of the prisoners,’’ she said.
Mamta Sharma, chair of India’s National Commission for Women, said jail authorities had to explain Singh’s death ‘‘despite so much protection, so much precaution, so much security.’’
‘‘This means that even though he was accused of such a heinous crime, the jail administration did not keep a watchful eye on him,’’ she said.
Sixty eight inmates in India killed themselves in 2011 and another eight were killed by fellow inmates, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. Tihar Jail is badly overcrowded, with its 12,000 prisoners nearly twice as many as it was designed to hold.
Bedi said despite that, the treatment of inmates has improved over the past two decades as the jail became more transparent, with volunteers constantly coming in and prisoners better educated about their rights.
Lawyers for the defendants had previously accused police of beating confessions out of the men.
No, that never happens.
Ram Singh’s father, Mangelal, said his son had been raped in prison by other inmates and had been repeatedly threatened by inmates and guards.
What you give is what you get.
Nevertheless, he said he visited his son four days ago and the man appeared fine and gave no hint of any despair.
Ram Singh also had a badly injured hand and would have been unable to hang himself, his father said, speaking from outside his small home in a New Delhi slum.
‘‘Somebody has killed him,’’ he said, saying he would push for a top-level investigation from India’s Central Bureau of Investigation.
Mangelal Singh said he feared for the safety of another son who is also on trial in the rape case.
Vivek Sharma, a lawyer representing another defendant, said he planned to ask the court to provide greater protection for his client.
Vimla Mehra, the director general of the jail, declined to say how Ram Singh could have managed to kill himself without alerting the other inmates in his small cell or the guards. ‘‘The inquiry is being conducted and it would be premature to make any statement about the details of the incident,’’ she said.
The rape victim and a male friend were attacked after boarding the bus Dec. 16 as they tried to return home after watching a movie, police say.
The six men, the only occupants of the private bus, beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries to her, police say. The victims were dumped naked on the roadside, and the woman died from her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.
The attack set off nationwide protests about India’s treatment of women and spurred the government to hurry through a package of laws to protect them.
Which have done absolutely nothing. Rapes are on the rise.
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