Nun Gang-Raped During Robbery in India

A nun in her 70s was gang-raped by a group of men on Saturday as she attempted to prevent them from robbing a missionary school in eastern India.

The AP reports:

The nun was hospitalized in serious condition after the attack, which was committed by seven or eight men at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Nadia district, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, a police officer said.

The men escaped and police are searching for them, said the officer…

According to the news agency, parents, students and teachers blocked roads and the nearby railroad station, demanding that police find and arrest the men. Thomas d’Souza, the Archbishop of Calcutta, told the BBC that security cameras inside of the school captured the faces of the men who carried out the attack.

The awful news comes on the heels of a very public conversation about rape and women’s rights in India.

Last week the Indian government attempted to ban BBC documentary India’s Daughters, a film that exposed the ugly stereotypes that underpinned the December 2012 gang rape that left a 23-year-old New Delhi woman dead.

The 2012 assault led to an overhaul of federal legislation, including doubling the prison sentence for convicted rapists. The AP also points out that the law, “makes it a crime for officers to refuse to open cases when complaints are made.”