Protests as Dalit teenager dies two weeks after gang-rape in India

ISLAMABAD: Protests have erupted in India over the death of a young woman two weeks after she was dragged from a field and allegedly gang-raped and tortured.

The 19-year-old was attacked while she was out cutting grass on 14 September in Hathras, a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The attackers allegedly pulled her into a field with her shawl, sexually assaulted her and tried to strangle her, international media reported.

The woman was found by her family naked, bleeding and paralysed, her tongue split and her spine broken. She was taken to hospital in the city of Aligargh and this week she was transferred to a facility in Delhi, where she died from her injuries on Tuesday morning. Four men have been arrested in connection with her death.

The woman was a Dalit, meaning she was from the lowest Indian caste. The suspects lived next door to her family and were from a higher caste. On Tuesday, more than 300 protesters from the Bhim Army, a party championing the rights of Dalits, gathered outside the hospital in Delhi demanding justice.

The woman’s family have alleged that their lower social status meant the police initially did not take the case seriously until it gained traction in the media. Hathras police have denied their response was slow.

The use of sexual violence as a tool of oppression against lower castes has been on the rise in India, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. Since September in the state there have been at last three other cases of young Dalit women and girls being raped and killed by upper-caste men. The youngest victim was three years old. Statistics show that each day in India at least four Dalit women are raped.