*LONDON: Massive protesters greeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modiwhen he arrived in London on Wednesday, demonstrating over a rising tide ofsexual violence at home including two particularly brutal rapes.*
Holding placards reading “Modi go home” and “we stand against Modi’s agendaof hate and greed,” they gathered outside Downing Street and parliament asModi arrived for talks with Prime Minister Theresa May.
Protests have erupted across India after the rape cases were reported.Police officers and a politician are under investigation in two of theunrelated cases.
In a crime that shocked India, an 8-year-old Muslim girl in the northernstate of Jammu and Kashmir was kidnapped, drugged and held for several dayswhile she was raped repeatedly and then murdered.
In the other case, a state lawmaker from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Partystands of raping a teenager. No action was taken against the politicianuntil the girl threatened to set herself on fire earlier this month. Herfather died soon afterwards from injuries he sustained while in policecustody.
Nearly 40 percent of India’s rape victims are children and the 40,000reported rapes in 2016 marked a 60 percent increase over the level in 2012– the year that a sickening rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in thecapital New Delhi sparked nationwide demonstrations.
Modi addressed the outrage over the latest rapes last week by promisingjustice regardless of whoever the guilty were. Agencies