NEW DELHI, January 15 (RIA Novosti) - Around 500 protesters blockaded a school in the Indian state of Goa on Tuesday to protest the rape of a seven-year-old female pupil in a school bathroom, NDTV television reported.
The girl's parents found their daughter in the bathroom in a state of shock on Monday. Once word of the rape got out, local people blocked students from entering the school. The school's director, whose office is next to the bathroom where the attack took place, has been arrested on charges of negligence, according to India's PTI news agency.
The police say they have a description of the offender and are searching for him. Meanwhile, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar met the protesters on Tuesday in a bid to defuse tension over the incident.
Unprecedented public protests against sex crimes have broken out across India in recent weeks following the death of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh, who was abducted from a bus and gang raped by six drunken men on December 16 in Delhi. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29 from massive internal injuries.
The mass protests have been met by force from the police, who demonstrators accuse of being indifferent to the spate of crimes.
The demonstrations have challenged the nation's conscience about how it treats the victims. Rape victims suffer huge stigma in India's largely conservative religous society, and are often told not to report the crime - or are seen as partly complicit in it.
Meanwhile a 20-year old woman from Karnataka was repeatedly raped by a man in Delhi who bought her from human traffickers for 100,000 rupees ( about $1800), the Deccan Herald reported on Tuesday. The victim managed to escape and report the crime to the police, who have arrested three people, including two women, in connection with the crime.
