Tag Archives: Mobs

Young girl’s rape triggers more angry protests in India

FILE PHOTO - Supporters of India's main opposition Congress party participate in a candle light vigil as they protest against the rape of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua near Jammu, and a teenager in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh state, in Ahmedabad, India April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Amit Dave

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Protests erupted in southern India over the rape of a nine-year-old girl, as anger over the failure of police to stem a series of sex attacks on children boiled over.

Reported rape cases in India have climbed steadily over recent years to around 40,000 in 2016, or about 100 a day, with many more believed to go unreported. Child rape accounts for about 40 percent of the reported cases.

A mob blocked highways on Thursday and sat on railway tracks near Guntur, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, demanding public punishment for a rickshaw puller accused of the attack.

The crowd attacked the accused’s house and thrashed his son, media said.

On Friday, the accused, said to be around 55, was found hanging in a wood and police said he had likely committed suicide.

Several cases of sexual assault of children have come to light in recent weeks from different parts of the country, leading to an outpouring of anger.

The government introduced the death penalty for the rape of girls younger than 12 last month after a particularly gruesome case of rape and murder of a Muslim girl in Jammu and Kashmir state.

Police superintendent Venkata Appala Naidu said the girl who had been assaulted in Guntur was recovering in hospital.

Registered cases of sexual violence have been rising despite the national outrage that followed the fatal gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012.

(Reporting by Malini Menon; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Muslim Mobs Burn Down Christian Homes and Churches

Muslims in Niger attacked Christians, burning their homes and churches over the weekend, in retaliation for the French magazine Charlie Hebdo publishing a cartoon of Muhammad.

The International Christian Concern reported missionaries in the capital city of Naimey said all of their churches have been burned to the ground along with the homes of every pastor in the city.  Some of the missionaries’ homes are among those destroyed by the mobs.

However, the missionaries reported that while smoke is “around all of side our house”, they are going to remain in Niger to speak the truth of Christ.

The protests apparently began at the grand mosque in the city and the mob then began their attack on Christians.

“I just rushed and told my colleagues in the church to take away their families from the place,” Pastor Zakaria Jadi said. “I took my family to take them out from the place. When I came back I just discovered that everything has gone. There’s nothing in my house and also in the church.”

Boko Haram’s leader was born in Niger and is believed to continue to have strong contacts in the country.