Chandigarh:
The Haryana Congress has called the rape of 11 women in the last one month a "conspiracy to malign the government".
The Congress is in power in the state, where the series of rapes, mostly of Dalit women, has rocked the state. The state Congress chief Phool Chand Mulana said, "Such incidents used to happen earlier as well," claiming that the incidents were being sensationalised.
Meanwhile, another woman was raped in Palwal's Mathepur village when she went to the fields to collect fodder. This is the fourth rape case in Palwal in the last 15 days.
The controversy over the rapes were further compounded when the khap panchayat - a body of elders which controls social norms and traditions in rural Haryana - of the village where a raped Dalit girl committed suicide said that the sexual assaults could be stopped if boys and girls got married earlier.
"When girls and boys go through puberty, they start having sexual desires which attract them to do unethical things. These things can also lead to rape, which is why I think there shouldn't be an age limit to marriage. When a girl is young, and a boy is young, they should just get married," a khap panchayat member in Meham, in the Chief Minister's home district of Rohtak, told NDTV. Some khap members also blamed television and films for their "bad influence". (
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Under pressure pressure the Congress government in Haryana led by chief minister Bhupinder Hooda says the police is "cracking down", but is under criticism for doing too little, too late. Most the victims have been dalits and some, minors.