16 YR OLD GIRL IN INDIA GANG RAPED MULTIPLE TIMES SET ON FIRE BY ACCUSER'S ASSOCIATES

KOLKATA, INDIA

Protests are underway in India following the death of a pregnant 16-year-old girl who was reportedly burned to death by friends of the sorry-excuse-for men who raped her multiple times earlier last year.

Indian police have filed murder charges against two individuals who allegedly set a 16-year-old girl on fire on December 23, after the victim succumbed to her injuries and passed away on New Years Eve.

The two suspects are closely connected to the people accused of gang-raping the 16-year-old, who was pregnant at the time of her death, and may have burned her alive in order to punish her for going to the police.

Before the teen girl passed away, she identified her attackers as close friends of the two people who raped her this past October, a local policeman confirmed to news outlets. “The accused tried to kill my daughter by setting her on fire to hush up their crimes,” the victim’s father told Agence France-Presse.

In October, she was assaulted by a group of more than six men near her family’s home near Calcutta. The next day, she reported the attack at a local police station, and was raped again on her way home from the station. Both assaults left her unconscious.

Initial media reports suggested the victim of rape committed suicide by self-immolation. However, the girl denied the allegations.

“She gave us a dying declaration in front of the health officials that she was set on fire by two persons close to the accused when she was alone at home on December 23,” local policeman Nimbala Santosh Uttamrao told AFP.

The family and the CITU (Center of India’s Trade Unions) decided to keep the body at Peace Haven mortuary in the city and hold a condolence rally the next day.

However, local police forcefully tried to take away the body for cremation on Tuesday night without the family’s consent, according to local media reports.

They came to the house of the family and demanded the death certificate that would allow cremation. The victim’s father claimed that the police threatened the whole family and told him to relocate from the area after he refused their demands.

The incident sparked protests in the city of Kolkata as thousands took to the streets on Wednesday in a show of solidarity. CITU took control of the body with the permission of the family members, according to Hindustan Times, and supporters gathered for a huge rally with the body.

The issue of sexual assaults on women in India has been in the spotlight since the gang rape of a student on a Delhi bus in December 2012. The case led to widespread protests across the country and ignited an intense debate over the rights of women.

In March India’s parliament introduced tougher rape laws, including the death penalty for repeat offenders and those whose victims are left in a "vegetative state."

According to activists the victims often face severe threats from their attackers and the country’s conviction rate for rape crimes is one of the lowest in the world. National Crime Records Bureau statistics suggests that a woman is raped every 20 minutes In India.