Woman raped.... made to drink acid and strangled to death

Indian woman who was strangled to
death had acid poured on her face to
prevent her being identified
Attack took place in Uttar Pradesh,
60 miles from where two teenage girls
were gang raped and hanged from a
mango tree
Police in north India are trying to
ascertain the identity of a young woman
who was strangled to death and had acid
poured on her face. The attack took place
about 60 miles from the village where two
girls were last week gang-raped and
hanged from a tree.
Officers said the body of the woman,
believed to be aged 22, was discovered on
Saturday in a field in the village of
Aithpura, close to the city of Bareilly.
Initial reports said the woman had been
raped, made to drink acid and strangled.
Her face had later been mutilated with
acid and petrol, apparently in an attempt
to hide her identity.
But the senior investigating officer, Supt
Ravindra Gaur, told The Independent that
while the woman had been murdered and
her face destroyed by acid, post-mortem
examination results showed she had not
been raped.
“We are still trying to identify the body,”
he said. “[We believe] the acid was
poured on her to conceal her identity.”
News of the latest incident of lethal
violence against women comes as India is
still reeling from the rape and murder last
week of two cousins, who were seized
and assaulted after they went into the
fields to relieve themselves. The girls,
believed to be aged between 12-14, were
then hanged from a mango tree on the
edge of the village using their own
scarves.
Relatives said when the girls went
missing, police refused to investigate the
case and abused them over their low-
caste status. The family’s caste is at the
very bottom of the Hindu social structure,
whereas the three alleged attackers and
the police officers on duty belong to the
yadav caste, which is the “dominant”
caste in the area.
Since the discovery of the girls’ bodies
last Wednesday morning, a number of
politicians have made their way to the
simple shack occupied by the girls’
extended family. The most recent was
Ram Vilas Paswan, a government minister
who is also from a low caste.
He criticised the state government of
Uttar Pradesh (UP) for failing to do more
to protect the girls. “If you are not being
able to provide right to life, then what
kind of government this is,” he asked,
according to reports in the Indian media.
Two teenage girls were found hanging from a
mango tree in Katra village in Uttar Pradesh last
week
The state government in UP is run by the
the Samajwadi Party, which draws much
of its support from the yadav caste.
During India’s recent election campaign,
the head of the party, Mulayam Singh
Yadav, sparked controversy by saying
rapists should not receive the death
penalty because “boys will be boys”.
On Monday, protesters from the Bharatiya
Janata Party, which runs India’s federal
government, protested outside the
headquarters of the UP state
administration in Lucknow. Police used
water cannon to disperse them.
Police said there was a suggestion that the
woman discovered on Saturday near
Bareilly may have come from the state of
Uttarakhand and a team of detectives had
been dispatched there to look into her
background.