India approves death penalty for rape of children
India’s government has approved the death penalty for child rapists amid massive protests across the country over the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl.
A group of Hindus raped and killed Asifa Bano in Indian-controlled Kashmir earlier in January.
Asifa was kidnapped from near her home and taken to a prayer hall at a Hindu temple where she was drugged, gang raped for five days, and eventually suffocated after being raped one last time.
The rapists all belonged to a Hindu community that has been tied up in a land dispute with Asifa’s Muslim nomadic community.
The horrific incident led to protests across India in recent days, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to call for a cabinet meeting on Saturday.
At that cabinet meeting, members approved a decree for capital punishment of felons convicted of raping children below the age of 12.
The new decree will remain in effect for a period of six months, or until parliament approval.
It was not clear whether the rapists in Asifa’s case had been detained, or whether the new ruling would apply to them.
Some 11,000 child rape cases were reported in India in 2015.
The recent rape and murder of Asifa sent out the sort of shockwaves that shook India after the gang rape of a Delhi student on a bus in 2012, which made headlines around the world.
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