PATNA: Police arrested eight suspects yesterday over the gang-rape of four schoolgirls abducted from their convent boarding house in the country’s east, officials said.
A group of men armed with knives barged into the hostel on Sunday night and kidnapped the girls aged between 12 and 14, before assaulting them in a nearby forest in the tribal state of Jharkhand, a police officer said.
“We have made some arrests and we are interrogating eight persons accused in the case,” police superintendent Y S Ramesh said. “These girls are shocked and frightened after the incident,” he said, adding that police would press for a speedy trial if the men were charged over the crime.
India faces intense scrutiny over its efforts to curb violence against women following the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi last December which sparked major protests.
The school principal told police that the gang locked him and other teachers inside a room at the school run by a Christian missionary in the state’s Pakur district. The men then entered the dormitory and took away
four girls. AFP
