Gang rape in India leads to new wave of protests

NEW DELHI: After rape and murder of a 27-year-old veterinary doctor, which spread of protest across India on Monday as people demanded tough and swift punishments, including public lynchings, to stop crimes against women.

The gang rape of a veterinary doctor whose body was set on fire and dumped under a bridge has sent shockwaves through India, with hundreds of women taking to the streets in protest.

The charred body of the 27-year-old woman was found on the outskirts of the southern city of Hyderabad on Wednesday night.

READ MORE: Six more suspects arrested in Kurram minor rape-murder case

CCTV footage, police reports and witness accounts suggest the attack had been premeditated.

The woman’s scooter tyres had allegedly been deflated by four men, who then sat waiting in a lorry nearby and approached her to offer help.

She was allegedly dragged to an uninhabited scrubland near the motorway that was hidden from the road by bushes,

Where she was smothered to muffle her screams and raped by the men.

It is believed they then suffocated her, Her body was then put into a truck and taken to a motorway underpass.

Her body was found at 5am by a resident of nearby Chatanpally village who noticed smoke.

The body was wrapped in a blanket and had been doused with kerosene.

READ ALSO: Five-year-old girl raped, murdered in Kurram Agency

The case has prompted revulsion across India, with many comparing it to the brutal gang rape and murder of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012.

which prompted thousands of women to take to the streets and resulted in a change in the law around what constitutes sexual crimes.

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside a police station on the outskirts of Hyderabad to demand justice, while protests also took place in Delhi and Bangalore.

Four men, identified as Mohammad Areef, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, all aged between 20 and 26, have been arrested and placed in 14-day judicial custody.

READ MORE: Six men accused of gang-rape apprehended in Karachi

In 2017, for example, courts only disposed off about 18,300 cases related to rape and more than 127,800 such cases remained pending at the end of the year.

At a protest in New Delhi, 19-year-old college student Aditi Purohit said that she was so angry and frustrated that she had left her classes and come out.

“If they (the accused) were in front of me, I would have killed them,” she said.