It is a pity to hear the news about gangrape cases often. The latest horrific news that has all ears is the gangrape of a Danish woman in the Indian capital. A 51-year-old Danish tourist was gang-raped in Delhi. The attack is the latest to focus world attention on sexual violence in India, where four men received a death sentence in September for raping a 23-year-old woman in the capital. The attack on the Danish tourist follows reports of similar assaults in India on a Swiss tourist last March and a US citizen in June. Three men were convicted and sentenced to 20 years in the June incident.
The unnamed Danish woman had arrived in Delhi earlier this week after visiting the Taj Mahal in Agra and was attacked as she made her way back to her hotel in Parhaganj; close to New Delhi Railway Station, after visiting the National Museum. Two men have been arrested and at least eight more detained in Delhi after the Danish tourist told police. She was gang-raped when she got lost in the Indian capital and asked for directions to her hotel. The attack is the latest of a series of cases that have focused international attention on sexual violence towards women in India. The woman has returned to Denmark. Delhi police confirmed that a rape case had been registered. “We are questioning a group of men,” said Rajan Bhagat, a police spokesman.
One of the most recognized sex crimes against women in South Asia is Mai’s 2002 rape. Mai, now in her 40s, was raped to avenge her 12-year-old brother’s alleged indecency with a woman from a rival tribe. Since the attack, she has won eminence around the globe. In 2005, “Glamour Magazine” named her “Woman of the Year”. According to the New York Times, “Her autobiography is the No. 3 bestseller in France, and movies are being made about her. She has been praised by dignitaries like Laura Bush and the French foreign minister. Mai’s story has fresh resonance since the brutal gangrape of a student on a New Delhi bus and her death a little over a year ago sparked international outrage about the levels of violence against women in India.
But the matter of concern is that how Mukhtaran Mai and the Delhi student who was gangraped earned so much publicity worldwide and the foreign women who have been raped in India remain unidentified and unrecognized. What is more surprising is that these foreign women belong to that part of the world where liberation of women holds immense significance. Why is it that these women are kept hidden from the world and not publicized? Their name and identity is never revealed. Are their cases different from the case of Mukhtaran Mai in any matter whatsoever?
its a shame. its horrific. lesser said the better.
India has recently modified its laws to give death penalty to the rapists in certain cases but still thats not deterred the sick minds. Indian laws, however, prohibit to publish the identity of the rape victims.