An Indian woman was sentenced to gang rape by a village council after she fell in love with a man from a different community and religion and could not pay the fines required by the council, the Associated Press reported.
An investigation has been ordered by India's Supreme Court after a 20-year-old woman was gang raped after the village council ordered it as a punishment, the Press Trust news agency reported on Friday, according to the AP.
The rape occurred in the West Bengal state Subalpur village located in the Birbhum district of the state, the AP reported. Thirteen suspects involved, including the head of the village council were arrested on Thursday.
The woman who was raped is part of the ethnic Santhal tribe, and the man she loved and planned to marry is a Muslim from a nearby village, according to the AP.
According to police, the Muslim man came to the Subalpur village where the woman lived on Monday to ask her to marry him. Villagers caught both the man and woman and tied them to a tree until the village council decided on the consequence for the "crime," the AP reported.
After deliberating, the council said the man and woman must each pay a fine of 25,000 rupees, the equivalent of $400, according to the AP.
The man was able to pay his fine, but the woman and her family were too poor and could not afford the fee. The council then decided the appropriate punishment would be gang rape, the AP reported.
According to police, the woman lost track of how many men had raped her, the AP reported.
The 20-year-old's rape has brought attention to the role of village councils who commonly rule over Indian villages, according to the AP. The council has power over deciding social norms, and even decide what women are allowed to wear and who they can marry.
Anyone who goes against a village council must deal with being "ostracized," the AP reported.
The state government in West Bengal transferred a top police official in the village's district for not handling the arrests of the 13 men properly, according to the AP.
Rape as a form of punishment in India has gained attention in the past year and has received criticism and outrage over the amount of "chronic sexual violence" in a country and religion which shuns sexual behaviors of the same kind, the AP reported.
