INDIA UPDATE! World's biggest Democracy - Issue 1

[Gammorin]

Sisters accused of theft hanged from a tree and torturred

KOLKATA — Two sisters were hanged from a tree and beaten up mercilessly in a West Bengal village after a kangaroo court found them guilty of stealing.


Mantu Santra and Baisakhi Santra, both in their teens and residents of Hijli village in West Midnapore district, were branded thieves and meted out the punishment on Friday by villagers, news reports here said. A crowd of around 500 people had gathered to witness the incident.

The sisters, accused of stealing jewellery and cash from the house of a school teacher, were tied to the branch of a tree for six hours and caned, slapped and clubbed because they refused to ‘confess’. They were employed as domestic help in the teacher's house.

The girls bled profusely and fell unconscious. The assaulters later dumped the girls in a field in a semi-naked condition. A villager took them home and brought a quack for treatment.

When their condition deteriorated further, the sisters were shifted to a sub- divisional hospital at Ghatal.

Asit Samanta, officer-in-charge of Chandrakona police station, said though no police complaint had been lodged, they were investigating the matter and would soon make arrests.

According to police, most of the people involved in the incident had fled the village.

However, village head Jiten Santra seemed unrepentant.

“In the case of petty crimes in the village we sit on judgement like this traditionally. The punishment this time was a little harsh perhaps,” he said.

A few senior villagers said the punishment was in keeping with the methods used by the police on criminals. They said the cost of treatment of the girls would be borne by the village.

The village is about 180km from Kolkata.

[Gammorin]

Child rape prompts India outrage

Campaigners say Indian girls are vulnerable Campaigners in India have called for the government to protect children after the "horrendous rape" of a 12-year-old in Haryana state. The girl has given birth to a premature baby boy in Delhi and doctors say they are worried about his condition.

Campaigners say the young mother has been traumatised by her ordeal, and that rape of minors is becoming increasingly commonplace in India.

Government statistics say one woman is raped every hour in India.

"It is a classic case of how minor girls fall pray to such predators in villages," said Reena Banerjee, an official of the Nava Shrishti (New World) Non-Governmental Organisation.

"What is important now is that the government takes strict action against such people and the media highlights such cases so that the lives of more girls are not also wasted."

Stomach pains

Campaigners say the girl was raped in her village in Haryana.

He threatened to kill my family if I spilled the beans, so I kept quiet

Rape victim, aged 12

They say she suffered great pain before and after the attack, and is too young to understand fully what has happened to her.

The girl told police that she was taken by a man to a remote part of the village where she lives and was brutally raped.

"He threatened to kill my family if I spilled the beans. So I kept quiet," the girl said in a statement.

Correspondents say that cases involving minors being raped are not uncommon in India, and that the girl in the latest attack would have died if her father had not sought additional medical advice.

Police say that the man they want to question in connection with the rape has absconded

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5056616.stm

[Gammorin]

India's female shortage leads to wife-renting


ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW DELHI — Some husbands in western India are renting out their wives to other men, cashing in on a shortage of single women available for marriage, according to a news report Monday.

Atta Prajapati, a farm worker who lives in Gujarat state, leases out his wife Laxmi to a wealthy landowner for $175 US a month, the Times of India reported, citing unidentified police officials. A farm worker earns a monthly minimum wage of around $22.

Laxmi is expected to live with the man, look after him and his house, and have sex with him, the report said.

The Times said this was not an isolated incident in the western state, and that several men rent their wives to other men on a month-by-month basis.

Gujarat officials were unwilling to comment on the report when contacted Monday by The Associated Press.

The male-female ratio is becoming increasing skewed across India because many parents abort female fetuses, preferring sons to daughters.

Female children must be married off, and to achieve that a daughter's parents usually have to pay the groom's family a dowry of cash and gifts — often a massive burden on the parents' resources.

Dowries were outlawed in 1961, but the practice is still common and the law ill-enforced.

The nationwide number of girls per 1,000 boys declined from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001, according to the 2001 national census. But in wealthy Gujarat state, the census showed 828 females for every 1,000 males, although officials say the number could be as low as 700 girls per 1,000 boys in parts of the state.

It is not unusual for wealthy families to hire housekeeping staff in India, but prostitution is illegal.

The lack of marriageable girls in Gujurat has also led to booming business for bride brokers, who are paid to find a woman for a man to marry.

Brokers charge a groom's family up to $1,520, and the girl's family will receive around $435, the newspaper said.

[mujahedeen2087]

Sisters accused of theft hanged from a tree and torturred

KOLKATA — Two sisters were hanged from a tree and beaten up mercilessly in a West Bengal village after a kangaroo court found them guilty of stealing.

The village is about 180km from Kolkata.

sense when did the kangaroos have a goverment?
what is this world coming to?