Two very young girls, one is two-and-a-half and the other five years old, were raped and left to die on Friday in Delhi, India. It was the third incident in one week, confirming the city's notoriety as the rape capital of India.
In the past months, a number of young girls as well as women had been raped in the country, showing the low regard of many Indian males of females. Ironically, India was celebration Navratri, the divine manifestation of feminine power, when the two attacks happened separately.
Daily Mail reports that men picked up the first victim, who is two-and-a-half years old, at the doorstep of her home in Nangloi, west Delhi. The mother recounts that her daughter was sitting in the house's courtyard when power went off at about 11 p.m. At that time there was an ongoing event in a nearby small community center.
Two men on a bike grabbed her daughter and sped away. After electricity returned in two minutes, residents ran after the bike riders, but they escaped. The girl was found bleeding at 2 a.m. at a park about 1 kilometer away. She is now recovering at the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital.
However, the New York Times reports that two teenagers have been arrested and were being questioned on Sunday by the police. Dependra Pathak, a police officer, said the two 17 year olds were arrested on Saturday.
The second victim, who is five and from a slum community in Anand Viharr, east Delhi, was raped by co-tenants and his friends. She was alone at home because her parents, who are laborers, were at work when she was lured by three intoxicated men to their house just above their home.
She cried while she was gang-raped, but the neighbors heard and nabbed the three rapists, identified as Prakash, Sitaram and Rewati. The three are now under a 14-day judicial custody and scheduled to appear at a local court on Oct. 31. Doctors had reconstructed the victim's perineum and vagina, and she is in a stable condition.
The first incident happened on Oct. 9 when a four-year-old girl was abducted while playing at the Railway Line Jhuggi area of Keshavpuram. Data from the National Crime Records Bureau said cases of rapes of minors are rising in Delhi from 12 in 2010-2012 to 165 in 2013 and 199 in 2014. But the New York Times says the number of rape victims in 2014 was 10 times larger at more than 2,000.