Woman gang-raped in India during quarantine alone in school

A woman was allegedly gang-raped in a school in Rajasthan, India, where she had been quarantined for a night by the state police amid the nationwide coronavirus lockdown, reports emerged on Sunday.

According to the Indian media, the incident happened last week when the victim, a daily-wage earner, sought shelter at a police station after walking alone for miles and losing the way to her native village.

The local police, in the absence of a quarantine centre, housed her for the night in a school building, where she was allegedly raped by three men.

“Three local men who raped the woman inside the school on April 23 have been arrested and sent to jail,” Parth Sharma, a deputy superintendent of police in Sawai Madhopur district in Rajasthan and the investigating officer in the case, told Reuters.

The victim, aged between 40-45 years, had been stuck in Sawai Madhopur for a month due to the lockdown and had decided to walk to her residence in Jaipur, the deputy superintendent said.

The victim said in a statement to the police that she had been walking for several days before she reached a village where she was raped.

Sharma said the woman had been sent to a local quarantine facility to get tested for coronavirus.

“We don’t know how long she was on her own for, and who she came into contact with, and her test results are not yet known,” he said, adding that a junior police officer had been suspended for negligence.

“The woman was kept in a government school alone by the villagers despite the fact that the local administration asked them not to do so,” Indian media said.

“The villagers were worried she may have the coronavirus because of which they wanted to keep her isolated,” the report added.

In India, the nationwide lockdown imposed by the government last month to control the spread of the virus that prompted tens of thousands of workers who lost their jobs in cities to walk for days in desperation to reach their homes in rural India.

India, with a population of 1.3 billion, so far reported 2,994,734 cases of coronavirus and 881 deaths.

Despite strict laws in the country, rape occurs every 20 minutes, on average, according to federal crime data of India.