One girl and 17 dirty men
The story is sadder than it seems. According to the authorities, the rapists sedated the girl with injected drugs, diluted in drinks or forcibly inhaled. The Indian newspaper 'The Times of India' reported that, in addition, the victim has hearing problems and that seventeen men have been indicted on Tuesday in an Indian court, accused of gang rape.
The girl lived in an apartment block in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. Among the accused men, approximately 22, including security guards and other maintenance workers who worked in their place of residence. The sexual aggressions against the minor lasted for more than half a year and managed to maintain her silence through different forms of extortion.
According to the police, after having sedated the child, the rapists proceeded to rape her and record the facts on video, and then blackmail her to silence what happened. Finally, last Saturday, the victim went to her older sister who was visiting the city, after which the family reported the case to the authorities. The charges imposed are for rape, attempted murder and intimidation.
After the court hearing on Tuesday, which was broadcast on television, about 50 lawyers pounced on several of the suspects to assault them, given the anger that the case has caused in the Indian population. On the other hand, the Association of Lawyers of the Supreme Court of Chennai announced that it will not defend any of the defendants.
Cases of rape and sexual assault against women and girls continue to rise in the country despite a wave of outrage after the rape and murder of a girl in a bus in New Delhi in 2012 caused the hardening of sentences. In this case, it is known that three of the four authors were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of the Asian country last week.
It is worth noting that in India more than one hundred cases of raped women are reported every day. Since May, the rape of children under twelve has been punishable by death and jail sentences have been extended for the rape of girls and women following the scandal of the rape of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kashmir.
However, since 2016 the figures have not stopped increasing when there were about 40,000 cases of rape, of which 2,167 were in a group.
