Mumbai court convicts 4 over photographer gang-rape

MUMBAI, India – A Mumbai court convicted 4 men on Thursday, March 20, over the gang-rape of a photographer on assignment in the city last year, a case that reignited nationwide anger over women’s safety.

The court found the men guilty of raping the 22-year-old in August last year at an abandoned mill compound, where she had gone to take photos with a male colleague, close to an upscale area of the financial city.

Mohammed Salim Ansari, Siraj Rehmat Khan, Vijay Mohan Jadhav and Mohammed Kasim Hafeez Shaikh, also known as Kasim Bangali, aged between 18 to 27 at the time of their arrest, were in the south Mumbai court to hear the verdict.

“It’s going to send a strong signal to would-be offenders,” Himanshu Roy, who was joint police commissioner at the time of the attack, told the NDTV news channel.

Roy is now head of Mumbai’s anti-terrorism squad.

A fifth accused, a teenager, is being tried separately by a juvenile court.

The attack shocked Mumbai, a city usually considered safer for women than the capital New Delhi, where the fatal gang-rape of a student 8 months earlier sparked nationwide protests over women’s safety and led to tougher rape and sexual assault laws. – Rappler.com