The rape of a 13-year-old girl was reportedly ordered in a remote village in India after her brother allegedly groped the daughter of the village headman.
The teen was dragged into the woods in front of many villagers by Nakabandi Pasi, son-in-law of the village headman Ghosal Pasi. The onlookers did nothing to stop it, despite her screams. A neighbour later said they didn’t try to stop it because they didn’t know he would rape her.
'My wife wept, but nobody listened. My daughter said, ‘Save me, save me,’ but nobody listened. All these people became blind when he was dragging my daughter away,’ her father Munna Pasi told the *New York Times. *
The teen’s brother is currently in custody for groping Nakabandi’s wife in the middle of the night. After his crime, it was up to the village headman to decide his punishment. ‘Ghosal told his son-in-law, ‘You do the same thing to his daughter that this man did to your wife,’ so he grabbed her and dragged her to the jungle,’ inspector general of the Jharkhand State police Lakshman Prasad Singh said.
Many small villages in India still operate on ancient, traditional forms of leadership, and don’t factor in state law. Many crimes go unreported to police. This particular village is extremely disconnected from the rest of India.
After the girl returned from her attack, she walked to the police station an hour away. Her father says the village headman has asked him to drop the charges, but he refused.
The incident is the latest in a number of similar attacks on women in India, who are frequently raped as retribution for crimes committed by male family members.
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.