PATNA-
A Muslim woman was allegedly gang-raped by more than a dozen men for participating in the election work for Hindu nationalist the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), police officials said on Tuesday.
According to reports, the woman from eastern Indian state of Jharkan filed a complaint with the police.
She alleged that on Monday, a mob attacked her home, gang-raped her, thrashed her 13-year-old daughter and handcuffed her husband.
Anurag Gupta, a senior officer and spokesman for Jharkhand police, confirmed to a foreign news agency that an investigation had started but said it was too soon to confirm her allegations of a political motive for the attack.
“An investigation from all angles is on and it is very difficult at present to say the exact reason behind the incident,” Gupta told the news agency.
The victim is part of the ‘minority’ wing of BJP, led by Hindu hardliner Narendra Modi.
Modi’s image remains tarnished by religious riots in his home state of Gujarat in 2002.
Modi, forecast by voter surveys to become prime minister after results are announced on May 16, was chief minister of Gujarat when the riots broke out.
More than 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims.
Despite criticism that he failed to contain the violence, he has been cleared of any personal wrongdoing. A woman he later appointed to his cabinet has been jailed for life for directing rioters.
Women’s issues are high on the agenda in the parliamentary elections following the fatal gang-rape of a student on a New Delhi bus in December 2012, which touched off a national debate about sexual violence.
The victim in Monday’s assault also alleged the attackers fled with 30,000 rupees (500 dollars) in cash and jewellery worth over 200,000 rupees.
Police inspector T. N. Singh in the police station closest to the victim’s home confirmed the gang-rape complaint to the news agency.
He said villagers had used the loudspeaker of the mosque to alert others to the assault, after which the attackers fled.
