NEW DELHI – Police in northern India said Wednesday that they have arrested two men for raping a young woman for the second time in three years after she refused to withdraw the case against them.
The woman, a college student in her early 20s, was in stable condition at a hospital in Haryana state following last week's attack, said senior state police officer Sanjay Kumar Singh. Police arrested a third suspect in the case this week and were looking for two others.
The incident highlights the persistence of violence against women in India despite a public outcry following the December 2012 gang rape of a woman aboard a moving bus in New Delhi that led to stronger laws against sexual assault.
After the woman in the latest case was first raped in 2013, three men were arrested. Two of them were freed on bail pending the outcome of the trial, which is ongoing. Singh said that those two were among five men who gang-raped the woman last week.
The woman, from a poor, low-caste family, had been raped in 2013 in Bhiwani, a town in Haryana. Her family moved to another town in Haryana, Rohtak, after they were threatened by the suspects.
The accused, who face life sentences if convicted in the first case, allegedly offered 5 million rupees ($73,500) to the woman's family to drop the rape complaint, the NDTV news channel cited the family as saying.
The woman told police that she was gang-raped again on July 13 because she was unwilling to withdraw the case.
According to Singh, the state police officer, the woman was abducted from outside her college in Rohtak and raped by the men, who later dumped her at a desolate spot in the town. Police found the victim lying unconscious and admitted her to a hospital.
Rohtak is 55 miles west of New Delhi.
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