NEW DELHI: Indian police said Tuesday that 17 men have been arrested for allegedly raping an 11-year-old girl over several weeks, in the country’s latest horrific sexual assault case.
The girl, who has a hearing disability, was allegedly sexually assaulted inside a largely unoccupied apartment block in the southern city of Chennai.
Among those arrested were the 300-flat building’s security guards, plumber and elevator operator, state police said.
The 66-year-old lift operator was the first to attack the girl after she returned from school and was cycling around the complex, police said.
He allegedly invited other men who filmed each other raping the child. As the ordeal progressed she was sedated with injections and drug-laced soft drinks, reports said.
“This is the initial stage of investigation and we have to go in-depth to ascertain the details,” a local police official told AFP.
According to local reports, the accused took the girl to various places in the complex including the basement, terrace, gym and public restrooms to rape her.
The incident came to light after the girl told her family who then lodged a police complaint. She is now receiving medical attention.
India has a grim record of sexual violence. Some 19,000 attacks on minors were reported in 2016, but vast numbers are never brought to police attention.
In January India was rocked by a particularly shocking attack when an eight-year-old girl died after being kidnapped, drugged and gang-raped for days at a Hindu temple.
This led to the introduction of the death sentence for the rape girls under the age of 12.
Indian minor raped by 17 men over weeks
Indian minor raped by 17 men over weeks
- Some 19,000 attacks on minors were reported in 2016, but vast numbers go unreported
- Among those arrested were security guards, a plumber and elevator operator, state police said
South Korea will boost medical school admissions to tackle physician shortage
- Jeong said all of the additional students will be trained through regional physician programs
SEOUL: South Korea plans to increase medical school admissions by more than 3,340 students from 2027 to 2031 to address concerns about physician shortages in one of the fastest-aging countries in the world, the government said Tuesday.
The decision was announced months after officials defused a prolonged doctors’ strike by backing away from a more ambitious increase pursued by Seoul’s former conservative government. Even the scaled-down plan drew criticism from the country’s doctors’ lobby, which said the move was “devoid of rational judgment.”
Kwak Soon-hun, a senior Health Ministry official, said that the president of the Korean Medical Association attended the healthcare policy meeting but left early to boycott the vote confirming the size of the admission increases.
The KMA president, Kim Taek-woo, later said the increases would overwhelm medical schools when combined with students returning from strikes or mandatory military service, and warned that the government would be “fully responsible for all confusion that emerges in the medical sector going forward.” The group didn’t immediately signal plans for further walkouts.
Health Minister Jeong Eun Kyeong said the annual medical school admissions cap will increase from the current 3,058 to 3,548 in 2027, with further hikes planned in subsequent years to reach 3,871 by 2031. This represents an average increase of 668 students per year over the five-year period, far smaller than the 2,000-per-year hike initially proposed by the government of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which sparked the months long strike by thousands of doctors.
Jeong said all of the additional students will be trained through regional physician programs, which aim to increase the number of doctors in small towns and rural areas that have been hit hardest by demographic pressures. The specific admissions quota for each medical school will be finalized in April.
