Eighteen found guilty in two separate gang-rape cases in India
Twenty-year sentences handed down.
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| In January, Indian activists hold candles as they participate in a vigil to protest against the gang rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl who was killed in Kolkata |
The 20-year-old woman was gang-raped on orders from tribal village elders who objected to her relationship with a man from a different community.
The attack took place in January in a remote village in eastern West Bengal state, where the unmarried woman from the Santhal group, one of India's largest tribes, was suspected of having a relationship with a man from another village.
All 13 of the accused were found guilty on charges of gang-rape, wrongful confinement and voluntarily causing hurt, lawyers said.
"The accused were found guilty on the basis of medical reports and statements of 31 witnesses," prosecution lawyer Mohammed Samsul Zoha told AFF by telephone from the city of Bolpur where the court hearing was held.
The incident happened in the village of Subalpur, 240 kilometers west of Kolkata, after the couple were found together.
The pair were tied to two separate trees and asked to pay a fine of 25,000 rupees (US$411) each for having the alleged affair. The man was freed after he agreed to pay the fine within a week, but the woman was taken to a shed where she was gang-raped, police said.
Tribal or caste-based village councils composed of male elders wield enormous influence over rural life, particularly in northern India. They often issue punishments for moral and other perceived offences.
The sentencing in Bolpur came just one day after a court in eastern India sentenced five men to 20 years imprisonment for raping and setting ablaze a schoolgirl who later died.
The 16-year-old was sexually assaulted twice in October by half a dozen men near her family's home in the town of Madhyagram, 25 kilometers north of Kolkata.
"A fast-track court on Friday sentenced five people in [the] Madhyamgram gang-rape case to 20 years in jail," Manjit Singh, the state's chief public prosecutor said.
Six men were arrested and charged over the attacks after the girl's death in a hospital on New Year's Eve last year. One of them was freed after he agreed to testify against his co-accused.
The girl's father, a taxi driver from Bihar, one of India's most impoverished states, had brought his family to West Bengal a few months before his daughter's death in the hope of better prospects.
The second rape of the teenager by the same gang of men occurred as she was returning home with her family after reporting the first attack at a police station.
Anant, a senior police officer from West Bengal who uses only one name, said the teenager was pregnant at the time of her death.
The victim's family had alleged that a member of the gang who attacked the girl had threatened dire consequences if the police complaint was not withdrawn.
The same day the threat was made in December, the victim was set ablaze in her own home, police said.
The men were convicted on the basis of the girl's dying declaration while in the hospital.
Her death sparked street protests in Kolkata as well as in New Delhi.
India has become more sensitized to the issue of violence against women since the brutal gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi in 2012. Parliament has since passed tougher laws to punish rapists.
Activists say rape victims often face severe threats and intimidation from their attackers while police frequently discourage them from lodging complaints.
Source: AFP/UCAN
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