Indian gang-rape victim’s father said he will refuse compensation offered

Indian gang-rape victim’s father said he will refuse compensation offered

Sohan Lal says he wants justice, not money, after government of Uttar Pradesh offered him £5,000 following death of his daughter.

The father of one of two teenagers whose bodies were found hanging from a tree in their village in northern India after they had been gang-raped has said he will refuse compensation offered by local authorities.

Sohan Lal, 50, said he wanted “justice, not money”, and would not accept the 500,000 Indian rupees (£5,000) the government of Uttar Pradesh had offered him. “What will I do with the money?” said Lal, who supports his family by farming half an acre of parched land.

Police say three suspects, all neighbours of the victims, have confessed to the attack in the remote village of Katra Sadatgunj last week. Murder and rape are crimes punishable by death under Indian law.

It was the latest in a series of incidents in India involving extreme violence against women. The gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapist in Delhi in 2012 led to a series of reforms, which campaigners say have been ineffectual.

Angry relatives in Katra Sadatgunj say the police ignored requests to search for the girls after they disappeared on Tuesday evening. They protested by refusing to allow the bodies to be cut down from the tree when they were discovered. Officials eventually removed the bodies after the first arrests were made on Wednesday…

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