New Delhi Police Blast Growing Anti-Rape Protests With Tear Gas
A number of protests sprang up in front of New Delhi police
headquarters, Parliament and a major university after a 23-year-
old woman in India was gang-raped and beaten nearly to death
with a metal rod on a bus that passed through a number of police
checkpoints. As if that wasn't bad enough, two more girls—ages
10 and 14, respectively—were discovered to have been sexually
assaulted. Only the older victim is still alive, in critical
condition after she was raped by four men. Nationwide rape cases
in India have jumped almost 875% over the last 40 years, and New
Delhi alone reported 600 cases in 2012. Bhavyaa Sharma, a
19-year-old women's college student present at the protests,
said that she and her friends were horrified, but not surprised,
at the news of the bus gang-rape. "I feel vulnerable here. I am
very sure about it. Delhi is not safe for women."  Today,
thousands of outraged Indian citizens gathered once again to
protest the rape culture i