NEW DELHI: Police on Saturday were hunting for three men who allegedly drugged, kidnapped and raped a teenage girl while she was on her way to a test-preparation course in northern India earlier this week, in yet another incident of rising crimes against women.
Police officer Ashwini Kumar said the victim is in stable condition in a hospital in Haryana state and police have recorded her statement.
Violent crime against women has been on the rise in India despite tough laws that were enacted five years ago.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted her father as saying she named three suspects who abducted her from a bus stop on Wednesday, but felt that 8-10 persons could have been in a village home where she was raped.
Indian media reports said the suspects were believed to be from her village and known to her. They dropped her later in their car at the pickup point in Mahendragarh, a town about 145 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of the Indian capital, New Delhi.
Kumar said the police know the identity of the suspects, but they have switched off their phones and were evading arrests.
The teenage victim suffered injuries on her back, shoulders and private parts, The Times of India newspaper reported.
India has been shaken by a series of sexual assaults since 2012, when a student was gang-raped and murdered on a moving New Delhi bus. That attack galvanized a country where widespread violence against women had long been quietly accepted.
While the government has passed a series of laws increasing punishment for rape of an adult to 20 years in prison, it’s rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported.
Responding to widespread outrage over the recent rape and killings of young girls and other attacks on children, India’s government in April approved the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under age 12.
Indian police hunt 3 suspects after girl is drugged, raped
Indian police hunt 3 suspects after girl is drugged, raped
- Police officer Ashwini Kumar said the victim is in stable condition in a hospital in Haryana state and police have recorded her statement.
- Indian media reports said the suspects were believed to be from her village and known to her.
Australian bushfires raze homes, cut power to tens of thousands
- PM Anthony Albanese said the nation faced a day of “extreme and dangerous” fire weather, especially in Victoria, where much of the state has been declared a disaster zone
SYDNEY: Thousands of firefighters battled bushfires in Australia’s southeast on Saturday that have razed homes, cut power to thousands of homes and burned swathes of bushland. The blazes have torn through more than 300,000 hectares (741,316 acres) of bushland amid a heatwave in Victoria state since the middle of the week, authorities said on Saturday, and 10 major fires were still burning statewide. In neighboring New South Wales state, several fires close to the Victorian border were burning at emergency level, the highest danger rating, the Rural Fire Service said, as temperatures hit the mid-40s Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit). More than 130 structures, including homes, have been destroyed and around 38,000 homes and businesses were without power due to the fires in Victoria, authorities said. The fires were the worst to hit the state since the Black Summer blazes of 2019-2020 that destroyed an area the size of Turkiye and killed 33 people. “Where we can fires will be being brought under control,” Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan told reporters, adding thousands of firefighters were in the field.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the nation faced a day of “extreme and dangerous” fire weather, especially in Victoria, where much of the state has been declared a disaster zone.
“My thoughts are with Australians in these regional communities at this very difficult time,” Albanese said in televised remarks from Canberra. One of the largest fires, near the town of Longwood, about 112 km (70 miles) north of Melbourne, has burned 130,000 hectares (320,000 acres) of bushland, destroying 30 structures, vineyards and agricultural land, authorities said. Dozens of communities near the fires have been evacuated and many of the state’s parks and campgrounds were closed. A heatwave warning on Saturday was in place for large parts of Victoria, while a fire weather warning was active for large areas of the country including New South Wales, the nation’s weather forecaster said. In New South Wales capital Sydney, the temperature climbed to 42.2 C, more than 17 degrees above the average maximum for January, according to data from the nation’s weather forecaster.
It predicted conditions to ease over the weekend as a southerly change brought milder temperatures to the state.
