Four rapes, mostly of minors, in the last four days in Haryana have raised serious questions about women’s safety in the northern state.
The assaults on women and girls — and mutilation of their private parts, in some cases — remind of the brutal gang rape and murder of a physiotherapy student in Delhi in December 2016 that led to a huge uproar across the country. Delhi was then called the rape capital of the country.
For Haryana, which has been known for a very poor sex ratio, the incidents come at a time when the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government announced that the number of girls born in the state had touched an all-time high of 914 per 1,000 boys in 2017.