A woman in India is fighting for her life at a hospital after she was brutally raped by a gang who used iron poles until they gouged out her intestines, marking the latest sex attack increasingly targeting women in India.
Like other South Asian nations, India has been facing a widespread increase in sexual assault against women often overshadowed by the mistreatment of women in neighboring Muslim-majority nations.
Daily Mail reports:
An Indian woman is fighting for her life after she was brutally gang-raped with metal poles and left to die in a forest by an unknown number of assailants. The woman was subjected to such horrific sexual violence that her intestines ‘spilled out’, local news reports. She was then left to die under a bridge near a village in South Dinajpur, West Bengal state.
Neh Delhi TV reveals that the rape victim “was rushed to the hospital and is currently in a critical condition following surgery” stemming from the attack.
Law enforcement has managed to arrest one of the two rapists the victim identified as her attackers.
The victim says two “hateful men attacked and abducted her while she was traveling home from a village on Saturday evening, but she was not discovered by authorities until Sunday afternoon,” notes Daily Mail.
Passersby spotted her by a bridge and called emergency services.
“I noticed the woman lying in an unconscious state. I sprinkled water on her face and she stirred. At that time, I noticed her intestine was coming out from her private parts,” said a witness, according to the police complaint cited by Hindustan Times.
“The woman told me a resident of Dehaband village, and some other persons abducted her and gang-raped her in a secluded place,” added the witness. “It seems after raping the girl the accused assaulted her with some weapon as a result of which her intestine came out.’
Violence against women in South Asia is spreading to Hindu (Nepal and India) and Muslim-majority nations (Afghanistan and Bangladesh) alike, according to non-profit nonprofit U.S.-based media organization Fair Observer.
“Crimes against women [are] reported every two minutes in India” — more than 2.2 million cases/crimes were registered in the last decade, noted the Scroll news outlet.
Foreign women have reportedly experienced some of the highest numbers of sexual assaults in India as the country grapples with an increase in violence against women in recent years, prompting authorities to urge female tourists to avoid skirts when visiting.
Some sexual assault laws on the books in India are outdated, noted CNN, explaining, “ The country has amended its laws to broaden the definition of rape to include any form of penetration; it lists out strict punishments not only for rape but also for sexual assault, voyeurism, and stalking.”
In 2014, there were 36,735 rapes reported in India.