Mob drags 'raped' girl out of car, attacks probe team

A team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) that went to investigate the rape and torture of a girl in Nuh district in Haryana was attacked by enraged villagers. The girl forcibly taken away from the team's custody.

With the police standing as helpless bystanders, nearly one thousand frenzied villagers, including women, pounced on the car on Thursday night. They forcibly broke it open, injuring the members and taking out the girl like a ''piece of meat'', NCW chairperson Mohini Giri said on Friday.

The team had gone to Sudaka, the village of 19-year-old girl Maimun who had been gang-raped. There also attempts on the girl's life following her love marriage to 28-year-old Idris on June 8.

After the murderous attacks, the couple had been on the run and approached the NCW on August 8 for protection.

Maimun's parents, who had planned to sell her off for Rs 10,000, had been enraged over the marriage and had rallied the entire village against her in an ironic case of protectors turning tormentors.

The team had gone to the village following reports that the girl's parents had beaten up and tied the boy's parents and brother in an effort to pressurise the couple to return.

NCW member Syeda S Hameed said, ''What we witnessed on Thursday night left us absolutely shaken.''

In the attack, NCW lawyer Sadik and the panel's drivers who came between the mob and the girl, were injured as people dragged Maimun away.

Narrating her plight, Maimun showed the stitched-up gashes all over her body.

Maimun, who was still in deep pain and could barely speak, said among her rapists was a village pradhan. It was her cousin who had cut open her abdomen and neck with a knife. She was, however, picked up by another woman and taken to hospital where she was saved by administering 11 bottles of blood.

Maimun's husband Idris had been publicly humiliated -- his face was blackened after being beaten up and tied. Rs 25,000 had also been extorted from him, Idris said.

Earlier a driver in Saudi Arabia, Idris said he was now penniless after making the huge payments and meeting the medical expenses. However, he said he only wanted peace in life.

Idris, who has stood by his wife through all her pain and torment, barely managed to save himself from the villagers's fury by hiding in the trunk of the car on Thursday. Faced with the enraged villagers, there was little that he could do as his wife was dragged by the mob.

Expressing "deep shock", Giri said it was ironic that such incidents occurred in the neighbourhood of Delhi when the capital was aglow with the Independence Day celebrations.

UNI