Photojournalist in Mumbai brutally gang-raped

A female photojournalist was gang-raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten in the Mahalaxmi area, near railway tracks, in Mumbai on Thursday evening.

The 22-year-old photographer, interning with a Mumbai-based lifestyle magazine, was on an assignment working on a photo feature on the crumbling residential building of former textile mill workers.

She, along with her male colleague, had planned to cover the Shakti Mills – an old textile mill that now lies abandoned and in ruins – for the photo shoot when she was attacked by a group of five men between 5pm and 6pm local time.

It is reported that the five men barged in the mill saying that the two had trespassed into the “railway property” and would have to accompany them to their senior officers. 

The two attackers accused her companion of being wanted for a murder, and knocked him down, while the remaining attackers took the girl to a corner and gang-raped her.

The girl was admitted to the Jaslok hospital after the attack, and her doctors have reported her medical condition is now stable.

A family member has said that she has suffered some internal injuries and bleeding, but was responding well to treatment.

A special squad has been formed by the local police as well as by the crime branch to probe into the case and based on the victim’s reports, Mumbai police released sketches of the five suspects which were distributed across the city. 

Satyapal Singh, Mumbai police commissioner, at a press conference in Mumbai on Friday afternoon said: “One of the accused has been arrested and the police have identified the other four involved. They are all believed to be between 20 and 25 years old and residents of Lower Parel area in Mumbai.”

Yesterday’s attack is reminiscent of the brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapist student last December on a bus in New Delhi that caused outrage across the country, putting pressure on the Indian government to pass a new sexual offence law in March 2013, which imposes stricter punishments for violence against women. 

Aastha Gill