India police arrest 2nd suspect in rape of 5-year-old girl

Indian police have arrested a second man in connection with the brutal torture and rape of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi, police officials say.

The second suspect, Pradeep Kumar, 19, was arrested on Monday in the eastern state of Bihar, where the first suspect, Manoj Kumar, was apprehended early Saturday morning, The Associated Press reported.

Kumar is a common last name in India and the two men are not related.

Police said the man was being transferred to New Delhi for questioning and DNA tests, noting that Pradeep Kumar was arrested after being implicated by Manoj Kumar during questioning.

The two men have been arrested on suspicion that they abducted the 5-year-old girl on April 14 and taking her into Manoj Kumar’s apartment, where they raped her several times. The girl was found semiconscious in the apartment two days later.

The case brought a new wave of protests against how Indian authorities handle sex crimes.

On Monday, hundreds of people demonstrated in New Delhi for the fourth consecutive day in protest against the conduct of police dealing with the kidnapping and rape of the girl.

The protesters, mostly members of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said that the police did not help locate the girl after she went missing from her home.

They were also furious after reports that officers tried to bribe the family of the victim to not file a case, and video footage showed an officer slapping a woman demonstrator on Friday.

The protesters have demanded that the Delhi police chief be removed from office and that police accused of failing to act on the parents’ complaint be dismissed.

Meanwhile, doctors treating the girl told reporters that the victim’s condition was improving.

The assault on the little girl has evoked memories of the horrific gang rape by six men of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus on December 16, 2012, in New Delhi. She succumbed to her injuries in a hospital in Singapore on December 29.

The horrific nature of the crime shocked Indians, who thronged the streets, demanding protection for women and capital punishment for rape, which currently carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.