INDIA'S DEADLY RAPES
In the village where two teens were raped and killed, mourners blame a raft of factors.
Grief, fear, blame in Indian village where cousins raped and hanged
June 1, 2014 -- Updated 0843 GMT (1643 HKT)
India outraged by gang rape and murder
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Katra Sadatganj, Uttar Pradesh, is the Indian village where two cousins were raped and hanged
- Residents blame a cocktail of issues for the attack, which has drawn international headlines
- Poor sanitation, underdevelopment, and apathetic police have all played a part, they say
- Five men, including two police officers, have been arrested in connection with the deaths
A powerful dust storm has
knocked out power supplies as we head into Uttar Pradesh's Budaun
district, but the headlights of our car illuminate the hazy figures of
men and women squatting behind roadside bushes to defecate.
Some 120km ahead of us
lies the village -- Katra Sadatganj -- where two schoolgirls were
attacked when they went out into the fields to relieve themselves
Tuesday night; the pair were gang raped and later found hanged in a
mango tree.
The brutal assault has
brought a range of challenges facing India into the international
spotlight, almost 67 years after the country gained its independence
from British rule.
At Katra Sadatganj,
villagers mourning the two girls blame a cocktail of issues for the
horrific rape attack, from a lack of decent sanitation, to
underdevelopment, to what they call police "slackness" in response to
the girls' disappearance.
Arrests in rape, hanging of two girls
Amnesty International on India hangings
Do women feel safe in India?
According to UNICEF,
India has the highest number of people in the world -- an estimated 620
million -- who defecate in the open; only half of the nation's
population uses toilets.
Most of those living at Katra Sadatganj have little choice in the matter.
"There's no toilet. Where
can the girls go?" shouted Jamuna Devi, one of those who had gathered
to mourn the dead girls, as she sat on the mud floor of their home. "No
one has done anything for sanitation," she complained.
"We are scared," screamed
Renu Devi, another of the women consoling the pair's bereaved mothers.
"If this could happen to them, it could happen with us also."
The mourners also accuse
police of apathy, echoing concerns raised over and over again by human
rights groups and activists concerning the handling of cases by India's
law enforcement officers.
Most of the country's
policing system is based on the 19th-century, colonial-era Indian Penal
Code (IPC), designed in the wake of an armed uprising against British
rule in 1857.
In its 2009 report,
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch reported that Indian police forces have
yet to evolve from the IPC's original pattern of behavior.
Authorities have acknowledged in past years that the country's police have also been under-staffed and under-resourced.
Katra Sadatganj's police station has been temporarily shut down after the attack drew national and international attention.
Two of its officers are among five people who have been arrested in connection with the schoolgirls' deaths.
The arrests so far notwithstanding, the murdered girls' families are unforgiving about the police's response to the case.
"If police wanted, my daughter would have been alive today," the father of the eldest victim wailed.
May 31, 2014 -- Updated 1931 GMT (0331 HKT)
Indian authorities arrest two more men in the gang-rape of two teenage
girls found hanging from a mango tree in a rural northern village. The
victim's family want their attackers to face the death penalty. FULL STORY
India gang-rape: Victims' relative calls for public hanging of attackers
May 31, 2014 -- Updated 1247 GMT (2047 HKT)
Do women feel safe in India?
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The shocking attack on the cousins ages 14 and 16 sparks outrage worldwide
- Two police officers and three brothers are arrested
- A total of five men are in custody so far
- "We are scared," says Renu Devi, a woman in the village
The assault on the cousins, ages 14 and 16, sparked outrage in the community in Uttar Pradesh state.
Villagers streamed into
the homes of the girls' relatives, weeping behind their customary veils.
The mother of one of the girls said her daughter wanted to become a
doctor to escape grinding poverty.
The attackers, she said, deserved the same fate that befell her daughter.
"Hang them in public," she said.
CNN cannot identify the relatives or victims under Indian law.
In the northern village
where the attack occurred, crowds surrounded the girls for hours after
their bodies were found Wednesday. They accused authorities of siding
with the suspects and blocked them from taking the girls down from their
nooses unless arrests are made.
Authorities arrested five
men -- three brothers and two police officers -- who are facing rape
and murder charges, said R.K.S. Rathore, a senior police officer.
In addition, the officers
face charges of conspiracy in the crime and negligence of duty after
villagers accused them of failing to respond when they first pinpointed
the suspects.
An autopsy confirmed
that the girls had been raped and strangled, according to authorities.
They were cremated the same day the bodies were found, in line with
Hindu customs, said Mukesh Saxena, a local police official.
"We are scared," said Renu Devi, a woman in the village where the attack occurred.
"If this could happen to them, it could happen to us also."
Police under scrutiny
Devi has reason to fear.
The girls were out in the orchard relieving themselves Tuesday night
when the attackers grabbed them, authorities said.
Toilets are rare in the village, forcing women to wander away into fields in the dead of night.
"There's no toilet.
Where can the girls go?" shouted Jamuni Devi, another woman from the
village. "No one has done anything for sanitation."
Indians have more access to mobile phones than to toilets, according to a United Nations report four years ago.
"India has some 545 million cell phones, enough to serve about 45% of the population," according to the U.N.
But it also has the
highest number of people in the world -- an estimated 620 million -- who
defecate in the open, according to UNICEF.
The lack of indoor plumbing leaves women in rural areas vulnerable to frequent rapes and beatings.
"It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said Zafar Adeel, who chairs the organization U.N.-Water.
Unable to stop
Some people saw the abduction but were unable to stop it, police spokesman Saxena said, citing witnesses.
His account echoed that
of the father of the older victim, who alleged that a scuffle broke out
between a relative and the three brothers suspected of the attack.
"They scared my cousin away with a locally made pistol," he said.
The daughter he lost was his only child.
The victims' relatives
accused local police of failing to respond and siding with the suspects
when the parents reported the case. The allegations have fueled anger
among the villagers.
"If police wanted, my daughter would have been alive today," he said.
'Endemic' violence
This Uttar Pradesh rape is the latest of several that have drawn the world's attention to India in recent years.
The horrific gang rape
and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi in late 2012 shook India,
sparking campaigns against violent crimes against women in the country,
the world's second most populous after China.
The case prompted
protests in many cities, soul-searching in the media and changes to the
law. But shocking instances of sexual violence continue to come to
light.
"Laws can only do so
much when you have to end something which is as endemic and as
entrenched as violence against women," said Divya Iyer, a senior
researcher for Amnesty International in Bangalore, India.
The country's new Prime
Minister, Narendra Modi, has said he wants to take steps to ensure that
women are safe, particularly in rural India. But women's rights groups
have criticized what they say is a lack of specific proposals to tackle
the problem, suggesting that gender inequality doesn't appear to be high
on his list of priorities.
CNN's Harmeet Shah Singh reported from Katra village, and Faith Karimi reported and wrote from Atlanta.
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