Kozhikode:
In the intensive care unit of a hospital in Kozhikode in Kerala, a three-year-old lies visibly bruised after being raped.
She was kidnapped while sleeping on a pavement next to her mother. The next morning, she was found by students near their school, burning with fever and covered with ants.
The child has fought for her life for the last two days, and is now stable, doctors said. The unimaginable horrors of her attack include severe internal injuries from a blunt object, they said.
12 people have been questioned by the police about her abduction and rape. Nobody has been arrested but a man in his 20s has been identified as the main suspect.
The girl's mother is pregnant. The police believes that a group of men who had sexually harassed her recently attacked her daughter.
Since December's fatal gang-rape of a young woman on a bus in Delhi, the lack of safety for women across the country has topped national discourse, and elicited international attention.