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Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images
Several thousands students rallied at the India Gate monument in New Delhi on Sunday.
NEW DELHI - The Indian government moved on Sunday to stamp out protests that have swelled in New Delhi since the gang-rape of a 23-year-old female medical student, banning gatherings of more than five people, but still thousands poured into the heart of the capital to vent their anger.
Police in riot gear used tear gas and batons to hold crowds back from marching on the presidential palace, just as they did the day before in clashes that media reports said injured more than two dozen protesters.
Doctors said the victim of last week's attack, who was beaten, raped for almost an hour by four men and then thrown out of a moving city bus in New Delhi, was still in a critical condition on respiratory support but responding to treatment.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.
Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images
Demonstrators in New Delhi throw stones at police during a protest calling for better safety for women, Sunday.
Most sexual assaults go unreported and unremarked, but the brutality of last week's attack triggered the biggest protests in the capital since mid-2011 demonstrations against corruption that rocked the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The protesters, predominantly college students but also housewives and even children, are demanding more steps from the authorities to ensure safety for women and some want the death penalty for the accused.
Several city metro stations were closed and several roads were barricaded on Sunday to prevent a build-up of protesters.
However, by early afternoon the crowd around the India Gate monument - normally a festive place on a Sunday -- had swelled to more than 2,000, according to police there. Scuffles broke out near government buildings, where youths shouted "Down with Delhi police!" and threw bottles at the forces holding them back.
Sajjad Hussain / AFP - Getty Images
New Delhi police fire tear gas to quell the biggest protest so far at the rape of a student last week.
Bowing to public pressure, Sonia Gandhi, chief of the ruling Congress party, emerged from her residence after midnight to talk to protesters. She went out again on Sunday with her son, Rahul Gandhi, who is seen as a future prime minister.
"She assured us of justice," said one of the students who met the Gandhis, though some in the crowds shouted "Down with Sonia Gandhi!"
Since last week's rape, the authorities have promised better police patrolling to ensure safety for women returning from work and entertainment districts, the installation of GPS on public transport vehicles, more buses at night, and fast-track courts for swift verdicts on cases of rape and sexual assault.
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Which is worth more over there, a woman or a goat? I keep forgetting...
no excuse for violence against women
The banner in the news photo says, 'Hang Therapists'.
At least they are protesting against this crime. There is hope...........
So uncivilized! Us Americans need to be grateful we live in a society where women can feel safe. The Indian government was sending a clear message by tear-gassing the people standing up for women's rights: They feel they have bigger fish to fry - like fighting off Muslim terrorists?
Well, the right wing christian extremists ARE trying to take women's reproductive rights away, TS. It's not like they have nothing to fight for themselves right in America.
Delhi is mecca for rapes. One every 18 hours and no convictions? Go figure.
The police are completely corrupt. Two decades back a drunk grandson of a retired admiral turned arms dealer crushed 5-6 people sleeping on sidewalks in the night and ran over a few police. There were witnesses too. But guess what - he is a free man today.
That's the @!$%#ing place that Delhi is. Delhi is modern India's shame.
I saw nothing in the article to indicate that those responsible for the attack were not being prosecuted. I guess I am not completely sure what the protests are about. Are they saying that the penalties are not severe enough? Are they saying that the police are not doing enough to try and prevent attacks? Or are people just venting because they are angered by the crime. It sounds to me like the police have suspects in custody. I agree that the penalty for rape should be severe, although I would not go so far as to say it should be a death penalty offense. I would think that something like a 25 year sentence would be in line. In this case maybe even a longer sentence would be in order because they apparently also beat this woman severely. Are people upset because they think that the police should have prevented this attack? It seems that they arrested the suspects fairly quickly, so other than preventing the crime to start with I do not see what more people would expect of the police.
JS in SD, "Are people upset because they think that the police should have prevented this attack?"
Good question, and it seems the simple answer is Yes, the police did turn a blind eye during the rape, according to nightly news a few days ago, when it was reported that a male and female medical student were severely beaten by a gang of six thugs while travelling on a public (but otherwise empty) bus. The male student was then thrown off the bus, while the female was persistently and mercilessly raped.
Up to this point, other than the six thugs, no-one else was implicated, but here's the catch, and I suppose the source of public anger. At the very least the bus driver was completely indifferent, possibly from fear, but it now seems he was acting in collusion. He must have been fully aware of the vicious rape and of the fate the male student being tossed from the bus.
Furthermore, during the rape the bus travelled through several police checkpoints but the bus was not stopped by the police. Is it feasible that diligent police didn't notice six frenzied thugs raping the medical student on a public bus? Or did the police --- as the public now believe --- simply turn a blind eye to the crime.
Initial reports indicate five of the thugs, as well as the bus driver, were taken into custody.
No, women do not feel safe in the U.S. We are now being told that we should have armed guards in our schools. Who wants to live in this kind of society?
Women are safe in the U.S.? Let's dispel that myth...
NYT: "An exhaustive government survey of rape and domestic violence released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence against women remains endemic in the United States and in some instances may be far more common than previously thought. Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point, and one in four reported having been beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women have been stalked, according to the report."
How many others have had something happen to them as children that they don't remember? How many were drunk or deliberately drugged, passed out at parties and don't know they were raped? How many are in denial that it was rape because "he was my boyfriend/husband/friend"?
For those looking at this terrible crime and thinking that we don't face the same sort of violence here, remind you about 20 dead children in Connecticut?
"Which is worth more over there, a woman or a goat? I keep forgetting..." Sir you forgot the basics, woman is a human and goat is an animal....If woman and goat are same in India, we would not had a women ruled us for 23 years as Prime Minister. Please do not judge the country and its people by just one bad event....
I think people are missing the point. The protesters want a harsher penalty than what is currently available for rape. The men and women who are protesting care about women and women's rights.
Indian law is based on English law. Women have equal rights in education and inheritance. India had a female prime minister for many years, and has many female members of Parliment. Women are free to become business owners, professors, journalists, or whatever they want.
Even the old preferences are changing. In the olden days, parents did prefer to have a son. However, this is changing in modern day India. In many families, the girls are treated like princesses.
Leroy Brown is correct, hence the fact Obama won the election. Women remember how they try to make us do what THEY want because of THEIR religion, it's NO DIFFERENT THAN INDIA. Repukes flagged his post so we can't see it but WE KNOW THE TRUTH AND THEY CAN'T handle it.
Pretty sad to hear India supports rape. Are these "honor rapings"?
Come on now, where do you get "India supports rape"? Police and politicians there are completely and absolutely corrupt and incompetent but that doesn't mean rape is supported. Police there are incapable of stopping any kind of crime, not only rape.
US seems to support killing grade school kids
That is an uninformed comment, to say the least. The criminals are already jailed, and are awaiting trial. The protesters want a harsher penalty than is currently available for rape. Currently, the harshest penalty is life in prison.
These criminals are from a slum. Their evil thoughts and deeds do NOT even reflect the morals of the slum they are from. It is an interesting point---in India, the fact that someone is poor does not mean that he/she is more prone to criminal behavior , drugs, or divorce. Once in a while, in a nation of one billion, you do find a handful of criminal types. Whether it is a corrupt politician, or a rapist, one has to wait for the wheels of justice to turn (slowly).
99% of the people are good. People believe in karma, so naturally are afraid of getting bad karma. That is why you will find that Indians are good folks, generally speaking.
Do a Google search for UNTESTED RAPE KITS and you may get the idea that rape is condoned by the US justice system.
Actually, the problem in the US is that the War-on-Drugs consumes so much attention from the justice sytem that there is nothing left to pursue crimnals with actual victims; such as rapists.
My primary care doctor is from India and fully believes in women's rights. My Cardiologist is from India and fully believes in women's rights. My Neurologist is from India and fully believes in woman's rights. The point being, this is a governmental problem that needs changing. The people of India need to stand up and take back their country from this evil. Until then, these disgusting human violations will continue to occur.
Butch - you are talking about a very thin sliver of very accomplished people. Delhi has been modern and ancient India's capital for thousands of years and as such smacks of power arrogance greed and lawlessness at all levels of society. I think lawlessness only feeds into the first three and women are more susceptible to atrocities than not in a lawless place.
Butch...if your doctors are so 'modern' and concerned...why are they HERE instead of in India...it is easier and more profitable to come to the USA than stay in their own pig pen of a country.
The same reason your forefathers gate crashed into this land. Are you native American ? If not, you are just a settler and someone in your lineage is an anchor baby.
In other words, doctors who emigrate from India to the US support women's rights. What is that, about 1/800 of 1% of the population?
Your three examples are Indian's with at least twenty six years of formal education, each. What would your guess be for the average education of Indian men? India is a country with 160 official dialects, crushing poverty, and a long history of opressing women.
There is a rape every 18 hours. This isn't the government, its the people.
As a woman, I feel safer walking down a street in any Indian town or city than I do in many other places in the world. Moreover, women are respected. India had a female prime minister for many years, and has many female politicians in Parliment. Quite a few states have female chief ministers. There are female doctors, lawyers, business owners, journalists, professors, etc......and housewives as well. Rape is quite unusual, which is why the public is so upset about it. Women have equal rights---in employment, education, inheritance, etc.
The laws are based on English laws.
Butch,I've had one female and one male doctor from India.I received second rate medical care from both of them.Maybe your doctor is Americanized but the ones I went to treated me like a pat on the head would make me well.I have a baby boomer,American doctor now and I could not be happier or healthier..
What they say to you as Professionals and what they think and do in private are two very different things.
Those who are against the rights of women,are not the educated, but mainly those who are not. Who follow the old ways, not the young, college educated people. Those outside of the more modern thinking ideologies of the civilized world.
In addition, the caste system is very much alive and going strong. I have friends who have shared with me the consequences people can face when they marry outside of their caste. The consequences for even touching certain member of the lowest castes. Just last week, a man was beaten and hung for merely touching a water handle, being thirsty, on a very hot day.Because he was an untouchable. A member of the lowest caste. He was expected to rather die of thirst,then touch something other upper castes had a right to.
For those who believe in the traditional ways, any woman who goes beyond her boundaries, violates this system and deserves to be punished. Including up to death. Though there are many who are putting great effort into trying to help remove the caste system, still in many of the smaller villages,it's strongly practiced. Rapes are often the way of punishing a woman for anything. Then her family will stone her for being raped.
Until the government truly backs up women, enforcing laws, and giving women the same equality as men, I fear women will continue to be merely not just seen as second class citizens, but even less in India. As simply disposable property.
Far less than animals, which help produce a living. Women are seen as a burden to feed, clothe, shelter and one must provide a dowry to even get them married. Yet are easy to punish or dispose of if they cause any problems like embarrassing their male family members. With no guilt what so ever.
If there is to be any changes eventually, it will come from the youth, and through technology. By being able to use the media, word will spread, and the youth will become stronger as they learn of other women in the world who aren't abused, but treated with equality. Until people learn there are better ways to live, they won't have hope. But once they understand there can be the light of goodness, equality in life, they will refuse to live in the shadow of evils darkness.
Round up the rapists, Cut off their weenies and sew them to their foreheads. Everyone will know who they are from now on.
From the appearance of the protests and the police actions regarding those protests, it really appears India seems to be protecting gang rape. They obviously are spending more energy to stop the demonstrations than they would need to arrest the rapists. Maybe Indian people should go hunt down the rapists themselves, since the cops aren't going to do it.
Nonsense. The criminals are in jail, awaiting trial. The protesters want a harsher penalty than what is currently on the books.
At least there were no guns involved.
Windancersong -" Rapes are often the way of punishing a woman for anything. Then her family will stone her for being raped." Sorry, but this has nothing to do with the caste system. Think about it - if someone is untouchable, why would the rapists want to rape her, requiring physical contact with her body? This is to do with gender inequality in India. Boys are honored, preferred children while girls are the "also rans". After years of this attitude, there is actually an unbalance in population figures in some areas, with there beng more men than women (abortion, infanticide, etc.). Girls are not valued and are to be controlled when possible. The reports are that because she dared to refuse their sexual harassment, she had to be punished in their opinion. And what a punishment - just so everyone is clear, this woman has lost her colon in the attack. That's how brutal it was. You may wish to steer the issue of male abuse away from this incident and dress it up as some sort of primitative caste punishment practice, but you are wrong. This was violence committed against a woman by young men, for all the usual reasons. She said "no"!
Stephaniecali
Thanks for taking notice. That would include such things as sexual harassment, refusing an arranged marriage, etc. I added the statement you quoted to show women could be raped for any reason. Not just because of my previously listed reasons.Nor I suspect, if females were hard to come by, would men refuse to take any girl, regardless of her status. Considering many don't follow the caste system anyway. Who would really care about such a girl in the end?As I pointed out, women are seen as property, far less in value then even animals, independent of the caste system.
The government needs to give them equal rights.Only when the population demands and forces the laws to change, will such attacks begin to diminish. When those who commit such crimes are truly punished, with others stop such acts of violence. Until there are real consequences, no one will fear the laws that don't exist, and more victims will suffer.
Concerning India's interest in male babies over females, just like China's people. There is a difference between men and women in India, with more males than females as you point out, unlike the U.S. For those so interested, the ratio of females to males in India as of the latest 2011 census, is 950 females to 1,000 males.
the report states that, Doctors said the 23-year-old victim of last week's attack, who was beaten, raped for almost an hour and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi, was still in a critical condition on respiratory support but responding to treatment. It is so bad that a policeman could not be found within th crime's time frame ? What is going on here? It was on a public bus, did no one try to stop it? Questions, many questions.
The driver of the privately owned public transportation bus was out on joyride after hours with his drinking friends when they picked up poor victim and her companion. Not many options for travel in that part for people, most of who don't have a vehicle. They even took money and gave tickets to the duo, then beat up the guy and assaulted the poor woman. With tinted / curtained windows, no one outside knew what was going on on the bus. Delhi is known for rapes in moving vehicles where these pack of animals pull random victims in a vehicle and rape them while the vehicle is moving.
Police in India are completely corrupt and incompetent. Many times people prefer not even calling the cops in case of small thefts etc. as nothing will be recovered and you would have the cops harassing the victim only, trying to get money by accusing them of some made up crimes.
Couple of days after this rape, there was another case in nearby state where a woman was gang-raped by her neighbors at a bus stop, when her in-laws who went inside to buy tickets. The in-laws found her unconscious, cried for help and the cops registered a complaint of "molestation". According to the victim, she gave written complaint of rape, identified the culprits and still cops wouldn't file the complaint. Only after the politicians got involved after protests, rape complaint was registered. People in US may have issues with cops here but you have to live in a 3rd world country to really appreciate the law and order situation here.
Arent the rapists already well hung?
Yes, with hate!!!
No Cheesehead, most rapists actually have little ones!
The rapists should get what is coming to them...slow death. However, the article is written in a much amateurish manner. It did not list the rapists' names, it did not address where they were or if they were arrested and what is the government going to do with them.
I don't care for violence but it's a positive to see so many men fighting for the rights and safety of women.
May the young woman who was attacked fully recover and become an example / advocate for fair treatment.
Convicted Rapists should be completely castrated, left with a catheter tube inserted in the bladder, instead of male genitals, and then paraded around the capital, on television, so the next time someone tries something like this, they'll think twice. How's that sound?
YES !!!!!!!!!!! Hang them !!!!!!
The US should also hang its rapists !!!!!!
Gandhi better wake up !
Sad, sad, sad.
Protesters are on the working edge of this problem. Seems the government is lacking and the society needs an enema.
Thank you protesters for expressing the righteous attitude.
The response is to support women's right to a safe and sane society.
Now here is a CAUSE!!! Preacher on radio said, he talked while flying out of an unamed Asian country to a woman who was there to rescue sex crime victims, namely children. He said she told him while there she had to rip an 18 month old baby! from the arms of a "man" that was, and get the adjectives here!, "sexually distroying and devastating the 18 MONTH OLD BABY!!!! Think real hard about those two discriptive adjectives. Very very disturbing. Any place on earth that has this going on needs the whole world to send the Marines in to wipe out all the evil men in these "entertainment" areas of these and all the worlds "asian" sick freak countries. I am ready sir!!! Will put on my old uniform in a heart beat. Arm me up and me and my M16 A1 will take care of the animals. No questions asked. Time to man up humanity!!! I can't go and help unless all in the group are going to do what I would and well I think I would be in jail in about one minute because I would not just take the innocent from the animals but I would break them and send them directly to hell!!! I can kill in many a way and the Lord would reward me and you and all that come to help the most horrible things one can imagine. Now someone do something and now. Women need to get in this because they might not kill them and well still an issue in most countries but still they need the gallows if you ask me. Thanks. Reread what that animal was doing. Also she said this happened everyday after work. The men go there and drink hard liquor mixed with snake blood and go crazy, out of their minds and do this to babies!!!!!!
The Indian authorities have clearly stated their position: Dissent is not tolerated, and they remain firmly in support of medieval traditions.
KInda familiar.
Nonsense. The criminals are in jail, awaiting trial.
The people of the world think that a protest will accomplish their objective. When it comes to social attitudes toward women or violence, protests will not change the problem. It is easier to blame the government who is partially to blame but should not be held fully responsible for these rapes. People need to accept responsibility for these rapes. That means activism on the local level. That means volunteering to monitor streets neighborhoods it means volunteering to educate people about rape it means teaching women self defense it means at its root changing the social attitude that encourages rape.
@ThinkingScientist I don't know where you live, but here in the US, women are NOT safe on a daily basis. In fact, without protection, I rarely leave the house. I have been stalked, followed home, blocked in at a drive through and harassed, and many many other things I could put on here (but won't). There is no such thing as walking down the street and being safe. I don't think men can really understand the level of possible violence we have to live with constantly.. Every 2 minutes a rape is reported (and that's only the documented ones). It's sad :/
DD I would agree that most men do not understand what many women deal with regarding rape and other forms of male domination. Men who have been raped understand the degradation and pain of this violent act but are so afraid of the stigmatization factor that they are even less likely than women to speak up about it.
Years ago when I lived in the city and had to deal with the harassment I learned self defense bought a gun and became even more careful in my habits. The result for me was empowerment. However, the harassment at the job did not stop. When I spoke up I got fired. It is the way of the world. There will come a day when women will rise up and put a stop to it but it won't be in our lifetime.
I think we need to get the UN to bud in here and if they don't do anything about the way the men in the middle east treat women the United States should.
It is sad that she didn't have the tools to protect herself. Evidently relying on the police wasn't a good idea either.
In the US, arresting and locking up nonviolent drug offenders takes a far higher priority than wasting resources on rapists. Do a Google search for UNTESTED RAPE KITS and see what I mean.
you will find that Rape Kits are normally not tested but are instead sent to the lab where they sit on shelves until the statute of limitations runs out and then are discarded.
At least they cared enough to protest about it. Tura Satana, gang raped at age 9 by 5 men in the USA. No one cared. They hated her because she was Asian and WWII, and unfortunately she was over developed for her age appearing older. Curious, were the rapists in India Muslims? Would the media even tell us that?
Well, let me start by saying that it's about time we got rid of all these Hindus in the the United States, the cause nothing but trouble and do not assimilate to American culture, they smell bad and do not use deodorant. They wear those turbins that look like they have roaches crawling out of them, and they do not respect women as you can see by this article. India is a poor backwards country with people with people that are very primitive, they even eat with their fingers, how disgusting is that? And they treat woman like crap.
you look like a hate-shop but let me tell you one simple thing; you are mentally ill and need treatment badly. peace.
I hope the young woman recovers, and can return to school eventually. I also hope that they will patrol the streets better, and push for harder punishment against criminals, especially rapists.