[JURIST] Indian police are accused of raping at least 16 women in Chhattisgarh in Bijapur district in October 2015, stated [press release] National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) [advocacy website] Saturday. NHRC said that the “human rights of the victims have been grossly violated by the security personnel of the Government of Chhattisgarh for which the State Government is vicariously liable.” Media reports [Dawn report] revealed that police had sexually assaulted at least 40 women in five villages during the anti-Maoist operation. The reports stated that among the victims were a 14-year-old girl and a pregnant woman. Kishore Narayan, lawyer for the victims, said that “the victims gave the names of the policemen involved in the barbarity but nothing has happened. They carried a sham investigation and are trying to obfuscate the case.” Narayan has filed a petition in the High Court demanding a special investigation by an external police team.

There has been a flurry of incidents involving gang-rapes of women in India the past few years, prompting the government to reform the criminal legal code regarding sexual violence. In December 2012 a 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped and murdered in a moving bus in New Delhi. The rape was especially violent causing the victim to die from severe injuries sustained during the incident. The youngest participant in the gang-rape was freed [BBC report] from jail in December after serving a three-year sentence. The rape sparked national outrage, and created immense pressure on the government to reform its “colonial-era laws” [JURIST op-ed]. Prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch [advocacy websites] have criticized [JURIST report] various aspects of the new laws stating that India has only reformed the most archaic of its laws and has failed to meet international standards for women’s rights.