In the latest incident of sexual violence that has shaken India, a 14-year-old girl and her 35-year-old mother were allegedly gang raped on a highway.
The family of six was travelling from India’s national capital, New Delhi towards Kanpur in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.
A gang of around a dozen robbers allegedly waylaid the car at a desolate stretch of the highway, before they raped the mother-daughter duo and robbed the family of money, jewellery and mobile phones.
Gang members were hiding behind bushes on the road and flung a metal rod at the vehicle. They attacked the occupants as the driver stopped to check the damage to the vehicle.
The women were dragged into the fields. Police said they were raped for three hours at gunpoint while other family members were thrashed.
The rape survivors and four of their family members were headed for a family engagement from Noida in the National Capital Region when their car was ambushed after Friday midnight.
Police on Sunday said they have detained 15 suspects who were identified soon after the investigation was launched on Saturday morning.
Lawmakers from the opposition in Uttar Pradesh have accused the state government of failing in protecting the women in the state.
In February this year, newspapers reported that scores of women were dragged from their vehicles stranded at the national highway between Delhi and Chandigarh at night, and gang raped by a mob of men that had brought the state of Haryana to a halt demanding reservation in jobs for ‘Jat’ community.
