Young Christian woman raped by Hindu cousins, mother nearly killed in religiously motivated attack

NEW DELHI — A 20-year-old Christian woman was raped and her mother nearly killed by their Hindu relatives in a religiously motivated attack and a dispute over property rights.

“Since we started to attend church six years ago, my father’s elder brother and his family have begun persecuting us in whatever way possible,” the woman, whose name is withheld as a rape victim, told Morning Star News.

She said she was sowing corn in Chhattisgarh state’s Kondagaon District early in the morning of July 15 when her father’s brother, Chinta Naag, who lives nearby, came to the field with his three sons and told her, her 18-year-old sister and their mother to stop cultivating the land.

The family depends on the land for their living in a village undisclosed for security reasons. Her mother told Naag the land belonged to her deceased husband, that she rightfully owned it and that he could not stop her from working on it, she said. In the ensuing heated argument, she said, the men threatened to kill them.

Naag’s three sons — Mukesh Dugga, Suresh Dugga and Lokesh Dugga — then caught the 20-year-old woman by her hair and began dragging her toward their house, she said. Her mother tried to stop them, but Mukesh Dugga attacked her with a spade (shovel), the victim said.

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