Two arrested after Nirbhaya-type gang rape and murder in Haryana

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ROHTAK/CHANDIGARH – In a savage gang rape reminiscent of the 2012 Nirbhaya incident, a young woman from Haryana’s Sonepat district was abducted, brutally raped and murdered, with her head and face smashed with a blunt object and crushed under the wheels of a vehicle. Two men, including her neighbor who was stalking her, have been arrested.

The distraught parents of the victim have demanded immediate death penalty for the accused. The mother of the victim said on Saturday that she wanted to kill the accused herself.

Police officials said that other men could be involved in the gruesome gangrape and murder.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expressed “deep shock” over the rape.

The incident comes days after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of four accused in the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape.

The Haryana woman, aged around 23 years, went missing on May 9, as per the complaint filed by her family.

Her body was found on the outskirts of Rohtak town, 70 km from national capital Delhi, early on Friday.

Police officials said that forensic experts have disclosed that the victim was sexually assaulted and her body was badly mutilated. Stray dogs had bitten off parts of the body.

S.K. Dhattarwal, Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak, said that the post-mortem examination of the body indicated sexual assault, mutilation of private parts and murder.

Police was told that the victim’s head and face were smashed with a hard object and crushed under the wheels of a vehicle. This, according to the police, was done to hide her identity.

The Haryana Police have launched an investigation into the brutal gang rape and murder. The arrested men were being interrogated, a police officer told IANS.

The two men arrested have been identified as Sumit and Vikas.

Police said that Sumit was a neighbor of the victim in Sonepat and had been stalking her for some time. He was pressurizing her to marry him but she had refused.

Police officials alleged that Sumit planned the gang rape and murder to teach a lesson to the woman.

Expressing deep shock and outrage over the brutal gang rape and murder, Gandhi hoped that the Haryana government would take action against the perpetrators.

“This savage and bone chilling incident has shocked the conscience of the nation, reminding each one of us about the crying need of revisiting the important issue of women’s safety and security,” she said.

A mentally unstable Nepalese woman was brutally gang raped and murdered by seven men in Rohtak district in February 2015. The accused were awarded the death penalty by a local court in December 2015.