On the orders of a village council, an Indian woman was gang-raped while being tied to a tree because she fell in love with a man from a different religion, police said Thursday.
In a horrific tale that led a 20-year-old woman to be hospitalized on Thursday, the woman recounted to the police that she had lost count of how many men had raped her, the Associated Press reported.
Police official C. Sudhakar said thirteen men had been arrested in the Monday night attack which landed the woman in a hospital suffering from serious conditions.
Being led into a hospital with an IV tube in her arm, television footage showed the woman with her face covered by scarves, the AP reported.
According to the police, when her relationship with the man was discovered, the village council in Subalpur village ordered the woman to pay a fine of 25,000 rupees ($400).
The council ordered the woman to be gang raped when her family said they were too poor to pay, the AP reported.
A widespread outrage has become constant in India over the past year as a rash of high-profile rapes, chronic sexual violence and government failures to protect women plague the country.
According to the AP, "The West Bengal case is particularly troubling, because it was allegedly ordered by a council made up of village elders. Such councils are not legally binding in India, but they are seen as the will of the local community. The councils decide on social norms in the village, and in some cases they dictate the way women can dress or who they can marry. Those who flout the councils risk being ostracized."
Subalpur is about 110 miles north of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, the AP reported.
When a woman was accused of falling in love with a man from a different caste four years ago, a village council in Birbhum district ordered a young woman to parade naked through the village.
Women's rights are destroyed by such local councils, Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women said.
"They are dead set against giving basic human rights to women," she said. "These are non-constitutional bodies and the West Bengal government should take stringent action against them."
The councils have been issued as illegal bodies by the Indian Supreme Court in the past. A comprehensive law that would make edicts by local councils illegal is being pushed to be passed by the Parliament, the AP reported.
