India Never Fails to Astonish in Its Breathtaking Brutality of Women and Children

5 female NGO workers abducted & gang-raped while raising awareness about human trafficking

People hold placards at a protest against the rape of an eight-year-old girl in India on April 22, 2018. © Amit Dave / Reuters

Five women were gang-raped by at least half a dozen men in India while performing a street play to bring awareness to human trafficking. The women, who work for an NGO, were approached by the men at gunpoint.

The women were performing in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand on Tuesday when the men approached the group, which also included four male colleagues and two nuns.

“The survivors said their male colleagues were beaten and made to drink their own urine before being locked up in the car,” Deputy Inspector General Amol V Homkar told the Times of India. 

“The culprits then took the survivors in the forest, gang-raped them and filmed the entire episode on their phones.” The two nuns, however, were not harmed, police told CBS News. 

Homkar told CBS that the authorities have “detained some suspects and are questioning them,” adding that the investigation is ongoing. “We will look at all angles to ascertain who is behind this heinous crime,” Police Superintendent Ashwini Kumar Sinha said.

The victims work for an NGO called Asha Kiran, which is supported by a local Christian missionary group. It is active in Jharkhand, which is known for human trafficking activity.

It comes amid nationwide outcry over cases of rape in India, where about 40,000 cases were reported in 2016, according to government data. However, that number is likely much higher as many cases go unreported.

Last month, 22 people were arrested in eastern India in three separate teenage rape cases. One of those involved a 16-year-old girl who was burned to death after a mob set fire to her home. 

In April, an Indian man was sentenced to death after raping and murdering a six-year-old girl. That sentencing came just days after the country’s cabinet passed an order making the rape of girls under 12 punishable by death.

The widespread cases of rape and sexual violence have prompted protests across the country, with demonstrations reaching as far as London in April.

Gang Rape Videos on Sale in India as Sex Crimes Against Women Soar

“Porn is passe. These real life crimes are the rage,”

© Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters

Shops in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh provide their customers not only with basic goods, but also with graphic gang rape videos. The state’s recent increase in sexual assaults has outraged the public and may drive the chief minister to resign.

Short clips, lasting from 30 seconds to five minutes, are downloaded directly to a customer’s cell phone as soon as the content has been paid for, The Times of India reported. The prices depend on how “exclusive” a clip is and vary from 50 to 150 rupees per clip ($0.75-$2). The trade turnover is quite significant with hundreds, or even thousands, of videos being sold every day.

“We are aware. We are taking necessary action. But it is difficult, as the sales are happening below the counter,” Ajay Sharma, a deputy inspector general of police in the city of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, said, according to Reuters.

As sales are under-the-table, dealers are reluctant to offer footage to new customers unless they have a reference from a trusted client.

“Porn is passe. These real life crimes are the rage,” a shop owner in Agra said, according to The Times of India.

Without a hint of guilt or shame! Sin is progressive! It's frightening to think what might come next.

“Dealers will download videos directly into your smart phone or put them in your pen drive,” he added.

The materials are sometimes taken from Twitter, Tumbler or Facebook, The Times of India said. In other cases, sex offenders shoot videos of rapes or assaults and put them online or use them as a tool to blackmail the victims.

Recently a number of horrifying gang rapes have been reported in Uttar Pradesh.

At the end of July a gang ambushed a car with a mother and a 14-year-old daughter on the Delhi-Kanpur National Highway. The women were raped for three hours while being held at gunpoint. Fifteen suspects were detained after police launched an investigation.

“The family was returning from Noida. A few miscreants tried to rob the family and then did certain indecent things. We are investigating the case further,” a policeman said, according to Channel NewsAsia.

On Tuesday a teacher was gangraped in a field in broad daylight not far from linking Delhi-Lucknow National Highway 24, Indian Express reported.

Local Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has been in hot water ever since reports of this kind of attacks intensified with the LawlessUP hashtag and calls for his resignation trending on Twitter.

There were 337,922 reports of violent acts against women, including rape, molestation and abduction in 2014 which is nine percent more than in 2013, according to Reuters.