India

The government executed Mohammed Afzal Guru on Saturday over his role in a deadly attack on Parliament in 2001 after his final mercy plea was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee, officials said.Mohammed Afzal Guru, a former fruit seller, was hangedMohammed Afzal Guru, a former fruit seller, was hanged at Tihar Jail at around 8am, related stories becoming only the second person to be hanged in India in nearly a decade, officials said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Child victims of sexual abuse in India are often mistreated and humiliated by police, says the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a new report.

Government systems to deal with the issue of abuse are inadequate, it says.

The report says sexual abuse is "disturbingly common" in Indian homes, schools and care homes.

The Indian government has made no public comment about the report's findings - it does not respond to such reports as a matter of policy.

A government study in 2007 reported that two out of every three children in India were physically abused and that 53% of the nearly 12,300 surveyed children reported one or more forms of sexual abuse.

Other reports say more than 7,200 children, including infants, are raped every year in India. Child rights activists believe many more cases go unreported.
'Dismissed, ignored, mistreated'

The 82-page report - Breaking the Silence: Child Sexual Abuse in India - was released in the Indian capital, Delhi, on Thursday morning.

It says that the authorities are failing to protect children both from sexual abuse and also when it comes to treating victims.

"Children who bravely complain of sexual abuse are often dismissed or ignored by the police, medical staff, and other authorities," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of HRW.

The report says that many children are "mistreated a second time by traumatic medical examinations and by police and other authorities who do not want to hear or believe their accounts".

It says that government efforts to tackle the problem, including new legislation to protect children from sexual abuse, will also fail "unless protection mechanisms are properly implemented and the justice system reformed to ensure that abuse is reported and fully prosecuted".

Campaigners say children are sexually abused by relatives, neighbours, at school and at care homes for orphans and that most of the cases go unreported because in India's traditional system, parents and families are afraid of attracting social stigma.

In May last year, India's parliament passed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act which, for the first time ever in the country, made all forms of child sexual abuse a criminal offence.

This law made it possible for an abuser to be prosecuted for molestation and non-penetrative sex, in addition to rape.

Until then, many abusers could escape punishment because non-penetrative sex was not recognised as rape. The law also shifted the burden of proof onto the abuser and recommended setting up special courts to try cases of child abuse.

But campaigners say that better laws alone will not help - what is needed is a change in the prevailing social attitudes and the way the police, medical officials and the judiciary deal with cases of sexual abuse of children.
 

Five men accused of the abduction, rape and murder of a student in the Indian capital, Delhi, have been hearing the first witness evidence in their trial.

The 23-year-old student's male friend, who was also attacked, was the only witness at Tuesday's hearing.

The five accused deny the charges. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. A sixth suspect is to be tried by a juvenile court.

No reporting was allowed of Tuesday's proceedings, which have now ended.

The assault has outraged India and sparked a debate about the treatment of women.
Reporting restrictions

The physiotherapy student's male companion was the first of some 80 witnesses to be produced by the prosecution at Saket District Court, a specially convened fast-track court.

All reporting of proceedings inside the courtroom has been banned and the judge has ordered lawyers not to speak to reporters.

The male companion will be cross-examined by the defence on Wednesday.

He was with the student when she was attacked on a bus and thrown from the vehicle.

She died in a Singapore hospital on 29 December from her internal injuries.

The woman and her 28-year-old companion cannot be named for legal reasons. He arrived at the courthouse in a wheelchair, still unable to walk properly due to injuries suffered in the attack.

His father, who accompanied him into the court complex, told Agence France-Presse news agency: "My son will go to any lengths to ensure that the guilty are punished."

The bus believed to have been used in the attack was driven into the court complex on Tuesday.

The five defendants facing trial in the Saket fast-track court are Ram Singh and his brother Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur.

They face 13 charges, including murder, gang-rape, kidnapping and destruction of evidence.

Prosecutors say they have extensive forensic evidence, supported by the suspects' mobile-phone records and the testimony of the dying woman and her companion.

Defence lawyers are expected to argue that the forensic evidence has been fabricated and that the rush to prosecute has led to an unsafe trial.

The sixth suspect, who is 17, will face trial in a juvenile court.

The maximum sentence he would face if convicted would be three years in a reform facility.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says the case is being closely followed in India, where it has led to massive protests about the treatment of women and how the police and legal system tackle sex crimes.

On Sunday, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee signed a new anti-rape law which has increased the minimum sentence for those convicted of gang-rape and allows for the death penalty to be used in extreme cases.

But women's groups have come out against the new law, saying that marital rape and sexual assaults by Indian security forces in conflict zones should have been included.


India's fast-track courts

• Some 1,200 fast-track courts were operating in India as of March 2012
• In Delhi, six fast-track courts were ordered for the trial of cases related to crimes against women, especially rape. Some other states such as Punjab and Maharashtra are also setting up fast-track courts for this purpose
• In 2000, central government started a scheme for more than 1,700 fast-track courts to try to clear the backlog of cases clogging up the Indian judicial system, partly related to a shortage of judges
• Funding is an issue because the central government said it could no longer fund them after March 2011, leaving future funding decisions to individual states
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five men pleaded not guilty on Saturday to charges they gang raped and murdered an Indian trainee physiotherapist, in a case that led to a shake-up of laws against sexual crimes after protests about a rising number of attacks on women.

A Reuters witness saw the men file into the court room with their faces covered, where lawyers in the case said they were read thirteen charges including murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. They left after 15 minutes.

"After the judge read out the charges, the five pleaded not guilty and walked out" said A.P. Singh, a lawyer defending two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur.

Singh said the next hearing will be held on February 5, when the prosecution will call three witnesses to the formal start of the trial.

A sixth person police say was part of the gang that attacked the woman and her friend is a juvenile and will be tried separately.

Police say the gang lured the 23-year-old physiotherapy student onto a bus, where they repeatedly raped and assaulted her with a metal bar before throwing her bleeding onto a highway. She died of internal injuries two weeks later.