An Indian court has sentenced five men to death for the rape and murder of a teenager and the murder of his father and toddler nephew.
The crime was committed in January 2021 when the men gave the girl and her family — all members of a disadvantaged tribal community in the central state of Chhattisgarh — lifts on their motorbikes while they were waiting for public transport.
They later stabbed the child’s father to death when he tried to stop the rape and killed his three-year-old nephew, public prosecutor Sunil Kumar Mishra told AFP.
The last victim was found unconscious by the locals a few days later and died in hospital.
The five men were found guilty of rape and triple murder “and sentenced to death,” Mishra said on Thursday, the day after the verdict was published by the court.
The sixth man “was found guilty of complicity, but his involvement in the rape was not proven, so he was sentenced to life for murder,” he added.
India imposes the death penalty, although it is rarely carried out.
An average of 90 rapes per day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people, but activists say many more go unreported.
The eastern court of the city of Kolkata sentenced a person to life imprisonment this week after being found guilty of raping and murdering a 31-year-old doctor last year. The doctor’s family wept, saying they were “shocked” by the sentence and hoped his killer would be hanged.
Members of a citizens’ forum, including doctors, attend a meeting to protest the rape and murder of a resident doctor at a government hospital in early August, in Kolkata, India, Oct. 1, 2024. / Credit: Bikas Das / AP
His bloody body was found in a government hospital in August nationwide anger and protests on the never-ending issue of violence against women.
The brutal nature of the attack drew comparisons to the 2012 gang-rape and killing of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weekly protests across the country. Four men were convicted of the bus attack released in March 2020.
Last week, more than a dozen men were arrested for this incident repeated sexual abuse of youthwho said that about 60 men targeted him in the southern state of Kerala in the past few years.
The men accused of the attack include the girl’s childhood friend, as well as neighbors and family friends, police told CBS News’ partner network, BBC News. At least five of his college students and classmates are among the suspects, according to Indian newspaper The News Minute.
Allegations of abuse came to light last month when a team of counselors working under a government program visited his home.
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