In Haryana a Dalit student, daughter of a poor charpoy-maker has been gang raped for the second time in three years by the same five men (Anil alias Bittu, Raju alias Jagmohan, Sandeep Singh, Mausam Kumar and Aakash), who first assaulted her in 2013 in Bhiwani, but the accused frightened the survivor’s family, and forced them to shift to Rohtak. The latest attack being a bid to pressure her into withdrawing her case, police said on Sunday.

The 21-year-old girl pursuing master’s degree from Rohtak’s MD University was kidnapped by 5 men on Wednesday from near her college, drove to a nearby place and gang-raped her. They left her to die in some bushes, where she lay unconscious with her clothes torn before she was seen by a passerby and taken to the hospital.

The five men were booked for the crime after the survivor lodged a police complaint. They are all in their late 20s and are former students of the same college. Four of them have small businesses or private jobs. One is jobless. Two of the accused are also Dalits, while the three others belong to an ‘upper caste’.

Later, three days after the crime, police are yet to make any arrest. Her brother said two of the five accused were arrested in 2013, but they came out on bail. “We had filed a case in court for the arrest of the remaining three and re-arrest of the two on bail. We were getting constant threats from the accused for an out-of-court settlement, but we remained firm,” he said.

Various Dalit organizations took out a protest march on Sunday and held a demonstration at the residence of Rohtak MLA Manish Grover. R K Ranga, Haryana president of All India Scheduled Class Employees Federation said that “This is very unfortunate. The accused were known to all. But police could not arrest them. The survivor did not get security.”

DSP Pushpa Khatari, said, “Police are conducting raids to nab the accused. We are waiting for a forensic report before proceeding further.”

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