- 'Go and enjoy yourselves': What tribal elder said before Indian gang rape victim was tied to a platform to be assaulted in view of entire village because of affair with a Muslim
- Woman, 20, sentenced to 'gang rape' by village court in east India
- Punished for having a relationship with a man of another religion
- She was tied to a platform and assaulted in front of the entire village
- The village head told the 13 men to 'go enjoy yourselves' after 'ruling'
| by Richard Shears
( January 24, 2014, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The 20-year-old Indian woman who was gang-raped by 13 men was sexually assaulted while tied to a raised bamboo platform so her entire village could watch the torture, it emerged today.
The head of the village, who led the kangaroo court which sentenced the woman to the savage rape as punishment for her falling in love with a man from another village, told the other judges to ‘go enjoy yourselves’.
As the woman remained in intensive care today, further horrific details of the gang-rape punishment emerged.
Villagers told the Times of India that after the kangaroo court ordered her to be sexually savaged after she was caught sitting with her Muslim lover in another village, she was dragged onto a raised bamboo platform 'so that the gang rape was viewed by the entire village, children included.'
The head man, named as Boloi Murdy, who convened the makeshift court in the courtyard of his home, at first ordered the woman or her family to pay a fine of 50,000 rupees (£485).
Murdy is reported to have told the men who gathered to watch the cruel spectacle: 'If the family does not pay up, go and enjoy yourselves.'
The terrified woman and her lover had sat tied to separate trees as the 'court' discussed her 'crime'. Her lover was released after he promised to pay his fine, but the woman was not spared because her family did not have the money to pay immediately.
She was tied down to the bamboo platform and then, according to villagers who spoke to the Times of India, 'her cries rent the air all night but no-one stepped forward to help her Even her family, who lives 50 meters away, could not rescue her.'
The paper said the woman's family was not given even a night's time to arrange for money to pay the fine and once the headman ordered rape it was free for all.
'Among those who raped her were teenagers and some old enough to be her father,' said a villager. 'Almost the entire village - including children - had joined the kangaroo court.
'All of them hailed it as the correct move.'
The village has no electricity or school and, says the paper, the administration has always been wary of interfering with tribal traditions, leaving local rulers to live by their own laws.
'Even on Thursday, a day after the gang-rape by up to 13 people, the village didn't show any hint of repentance,' says the paper.
'The women, in fact, barracked police, insisting the men had done nothing wrong and that the woman had to be punished.'
Even the authorities have shown indifference to the woman's treatment.
The paper claims that at first the police did not seek custody of the accused men, allowing them to go free until their court appearances - which is unprecedented in gang-rape cases. Later they decided to hold the group in jail for 14 days.
To add to the woman's shameful treatment, the public prosecutor did not even turn up in court because it was a holiday and no government official has bothered to meet the woman's family or visit the scene of the crime.
Villagers were heard shouting that they would never allow the young woman or her family to return to the village, accusing the victim of framing the accused men because she had been ordered to leave the village if she continued with her affair.
A local politician, Mukul Roy, in a statement said: 'The government is firm and will take strictest action against the culprits. It is a social malaise and we shall combat it politically, socially and administratively.'
