A court in southern India has charged a 66-year-old man and 16 others with the repeated gang-rape of an 11-year-old deaf girl over a period of seven months. The incident is part the country’s ongoing rape crisis, which has also seen Christian women attacked.
The accused, including security guards, elevator operators, electricians and plumbers, have been ordered to be held in custody until July 31, according to The Hindu, a newspaper published from the city of Chennai, where the crimes took place.
The 66-year-old, who’s an elevator operator, allegedly drugged the girl and invited other men to assault her in her apartment block after she returned home from school. The other men filmed each other raping the child, according to media reports.
More suspects are likely to be charged in the case, police said.
In his police complaint, the girl’s father wrote that his daughter complained of periodic stomach aches and later told her mother that she was sexually abused from Jan. 15 to July 5, according to the Hindustan Times.
The accused had blackmailed and threatened the victim with dire consequences if she reported the rape to her parents.
The incident has sparked public outrage.
Lawyers beat the accused when they arrived at a court in Chennai on Tuesday, and the lawyers’ association in the city has declared that no attorney will defend the accused.
On Wednesday, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said 110,333 cases of rape were registered in the country between 2014 and 2016, according to Press Trust of India.
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Source: Baptist Press
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