--BEGIN WITH YES
…I went to
the prison yesterday. Outside there were
high-walled fences with razor wire scrolled over the tops. In one area, a dozen or so prisoners walked
the grounds. Inside I met two dour
clerks. They would not let me go further
than five feet. But I placed some calls,
so maybe I’ll get a tour of the place eventually.
…I hope you
have a stellar weekend. It’s presently
raining sheets here.
…Why is no
one talking about this?
Two more women have been found
hanging from trees in India's Uttar Pradesh state, and another has claimed she
was gang-raped by four police officers, the latest developments in a crisis
over women's safety that has gripped the Asian nation, Sky News reports.
Last month, two girls, aged 14
and 15, were gang-raped and lynched in the impoverished Katra village,
triggering outrage across the nation and leading India's national women's
rights body to call for the state government to resign over the crisis.
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In Thursday's incident, a
19-year-old was found hanging from a tree in a village in Morabad district, Sky
News reported.
"The body was strung up
using the girl's dupatta (long scarf)," senior police superintendent
Ashutosh Kumar said. "The FIR (first information report) was lodged by the
girl's brother against unidentified persons. He has alleged the girl was
murdered."
The discovery comes one day
after a 45-year-old woman was found hanging from a tree, with her family
claiming she had been raped and murdered.
Her husband said she was
singled out for attack as she returned home in Bahraich district as punishment
for trying to halt the sale of alcohol in her area.
A district superintendent said
four men have been detained in the case.
Meanwhile, the woman who
alleged she was gang-raped by police officers said the crime happened inside a
police station as she was trying to secure her husband's release. She claimed
she was attacked when she refused to pay authorities a bribe.
Ashish Gupta, a state
inspector-general of police, pointed out to journalists last month that 10
rapes are reported every day in Uttar Pradesh, which has 200 million people and
is India's most populous state. Gupta said 60 percent of such crimes happen
when women go into the fields because their homes have no toilets.
Official statistics say about
25,000 rapes are committed every year in India, a nation of 1.2 billion people.
Activists, though, say that number is just a tiny percentage of the actual
number, since victims are often pressed by family or police to stay quiet about
sexual assaults. The stigma of rape runs deep, with many women accused of rape
still forced to answer questions about their sexual history, the
provocativeness of their clothing and whether they may have invited the attack.
Rape victims can face years of
whispers behind their backs. They and their siblings can have trouble finding
spouses. Question marks can taint their families for a generation.
Indian officials, who for
decades had done little about sexual violence, have faced growing public anger
since the December 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a moving New
Delhi bus, an attack that sparked national outrage.
The nationwide outcry led the
federal government to rush legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20
years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. The
law also makes it a crime for officers to refuse to open cases when complaints
are made.
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