According to the BBC, tension and conflict arose in an Indian village earlier this year when a young woman from an upper-caste Yadav family eloped with a 19-year old man of the Dalit caste, which is the lowest in India’s bizarre caste system. So several dozen Yadav men did what any self-respecting upper-caste man would — they first paraded the young man’s mother and aunts through the village and then gang raped them.
Police have arrested eight people in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh for their alleged involvement in the attack. Witnesses told police that about 30 men were involved altogether in the gang rape..
India’s caste system is abolished by law, but, as this incident underscores, it is still solidly entrenched in practice.
Source:
Men held over ‘caste gang-rape’. The BBC, July 10, 2004.