India is once against forced to confront the dismal situation millions of its women face because of an appalling attitude toward rape;  A 20-year old woman says she was gang-raped on the orders of her rural village elders who objected to her relationship with a man from another village.

“The relationship was going on for almost five years.  When the man visited the woman's home on Monday with the proposal of marriage, villagers spotted him and organized a kangaroo court.  During the ‘proceedings’, the couple were made to sit with hands tied,” said local police chief C. Sudhakar. 

The tribal council in the impoverished region fined the couple more than A$400 for the crime of falling in love.  The man paid his fine, but the victim and her family didn’t have the cash.

Chief Sudhakar says that the headman, a relative of the young woman, then ordered the rape.  He’s one of the 13 men arrested and hauled before a real court.  The victim is in hospital in critical condition.

Outrage over this sort of violence in India has grown since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus.