NEW DELHI
(AP) -- Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another
gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack
on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to
calls for tougher rape laws.
Police officer
Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus
as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday
night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated
pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said.
There,
the driver and the conductor took her to a building where they were
joined by five friends and took turns raping her throughout the night,
Singh said.
The driver dropped the woman off at her village early Saturday, he said.
Singh said police arrested six suspects on Saturday and were searching for another.
Gurmej
Singh, deputy superintendent of police, said all six admitted
involvement in the rape. He said the victim was recovering at home.
Also
on Saturday, police arrested a 32-year-old man for allegedly raping and
killing a 9-year-old girl two weeks ago in Ahmednagar district in
western India, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Her
decomposed body was found Friday.
Police
officer Sunita Thakare said the suspect committed the crime seven months
after his release from prison after serving nine years for raping and
murdering a girl in 2003, PTI reported Sunday.
The
deadly rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus in December led
to the woman's death and set off an impassioned debate about what India
needs to do to prevent such tragedies. Protesters and politicians have
called for tougher rape laws, police reforms and a transformation in the
way the country treats women.
"It's a very
deep malaise. This aspect of gender justice hasn't been dealt with in
our nation-building task," Seema Mustafa, a writer on social issues who
heads the Center for Policy Analysis think tank, said Sunday.
"Police
haven't dealt with the issue severely in the past. The message that
goes out is that the punishment doesn't match the crime. Criminals think
they can get away it," she said.
In her first
published comments, the mother of the deceased student in the New Delhi
attack said Sunday that all six suspects in that case, including one
believed to be a juvenile, deserve to die.
She
was quoted by The Times of India newspaper as saying that her daughter,
who died from massive internal injuries two weeks after the attack,
told her that the youngest suspect had participated in the most brutal
aspects of the rape.
Five men have been
charged with the physiotherapy student's rape and murder and face a
possible death penalty if convicted. The sixth suspect, who says he is
17 years old, is likely to be tried in a juvenile court if medical tests
confirm he is a minor. His maximum sentence would be three years in a
reform facility.
"Now the only thing that will
satisfy us is to see them punished. For what they did to her, they
deserve to die," the newspaper quoted the mother as saying.
Some activists have demanded a change in Indian laws so that juveniles committing heinous crimes can face the death penalty.
The names of the victim of the Dec. 16 attack and her family have not been released.
Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
