Indian girl who protested against village elders found dead

KOLKATA, INDIA // A teenager is supected to have been raped and murdered in eastern India after protesting against village elders’ treatment of her father.

“Police arrested three people after the girl’s father lodged a complaint that she was raped and murdered,” said James Kujur, an additional superintendent of police.

“Her father named 13 persons in the complaint. We are investigating the case,” said Supt Kujur, who visited the crime scene.

“The girl went missing after she protested at the village council, who had called her father asking him to settle his dues for hiring a power tiller from a villager.”

Elders of the village council in West Bengal state instead turned on the 16-year-old on Monday night and demanded she lick spittle off the ground, the NDTV network quoted villagers as saying.

Village elders still hold huge sway in deeply impoverished Indian villages and often act as a parallel legal system, settling disputes and handing down judgements.

Police said the three men arrested were members of the village council who were being questioned, but no charges had been laid.

Council elders told local media they were not involved in the girl’s death and said they had not assaulted the father.

Police found the girl’s body on on Tuesday morning on railway tracks near her home in Dhupguri village 680 kilometres north of Kolkata.

The body has been sent for post mortem examination as police attempt to unravel yet another case of suspected sexual violence.

India introduced tougher laws to deter rapists following public outrage over the 2012 fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi.

But attacks against women have continued unabated in many parts of the country.

* Agence France-Presse