The 7-year-old, who went missing in the city of Mandsaur in central India on Tuesday, was found the next day in bushes about 2,000 feet from her school. She was rushed to the hospital, where medical tests confirmed that she had been raped and assaulted with sharp-edged weapons, the Deccan Chronicle reported.
After several surgeries, doctors at the Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in Indore said, the girl is in stable condition.
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters armed with signs, candles and megaphones gathered in cities, blocking streets and shutting down businesses, CBS News reported.
Many have called for the two men arrested in the case to receive the death sentence.
A recent report ranking India as the most dangerous place to live for women found that there are nearly four cases of rape in the country every hour. Data released by the government suggests that almost 50 percent of these rape victims are minors, Reuters reported. Close to 19,000 cases of rape against children were registered in 2016.
On Friday, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state, where Mandsaur is located, told reporters that the alleged perpetrators in the Mandsaur case had been arrested and that authorities were working to “ensure through fast track courts that he will get capital punishment at the earliest,” NDTV reported.
In India, where the legal system is overtaxed and weighed down by bureaucratic processes that can cause decade-long delays in prosecution, many worry that it will take too long for the alleged perpetrators to be convicted and sentenced.
The people rallying behind the Mandsaur victim hope their voices will be loud enough to secure justice. The girl’s father, a flower vendor, has made a similar appeal.
“We want the legal process in this case to be completed at the earliest and the convicts to be given death sentences as soon as possible,” he said.
