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‘No One Helped My Daughter’: 16-Year-Old Girl Stabbed To Death In India As Bystanders Reportedly Filmed

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The brutal stabbing and beating of a 16-year-old girl in India while in a busy alleyway has prompted officials to speak out against  violence being perpetrated against women in the country.

The unnamed victim was found Sunday evening in the New Delhi neighborhood of Rohini, bludgeoned and stabbed to death, CNN reported. Video of the attack, captured on a security camera, revealed multiple witnesses walking by the victim as she was repeatedly struck by her attacker with a rock against the wall of a house for more than a minute.

“I saw my daughter was lying on the ground, with her face to the ground,” Janak Raj, the victim’s father, told CNN. “Her organs had come out and her head had been smashed in. She lay there lifeless. There was no point in taking her to hospital.”

Heartbroken over his daughter’s gruesome death, the pain of Raj’s loss was compounded with the knowledge that no one intervened on her behalf. “It angers me to know that no one helped my daughter,” he told CNN. “If they had helped her, she would have been alive today. I also heard that the bystanders were busy filming videos of the incident. Even if they had screamed, it would have helped my daughter.”

Swati Maliwal, a representative for the Delhi Commission for Women, condemned the attack as one of the most “horrifying” incidents she had ever witnessed in her career. “There were so many people when the murder took place, but no one helped the girl. Even if they would have shouted, maybe the girl could have survived,” Maliwal told The Guardian.

Yogita Bhayana, founder of People Against Rapes in India, told CNN violence against women is largely rooted in the “patriarchal fabric” of the country. “We learn to live with this kind of situation in our country which is very unfortunate. The basic patriarchal fabric is totally rotten and right now we need to fix that.”

“Putting cameras and putting marshals is not going to be enough,” Bhayana added. “The work has to be done on the mindset of the men and the boys.”

Law enforcement officials apprehended 20-year-old Sahil Khan who reportedly told police the victim had “humiliated” him when she tried to end their relationship. “This angered him and he decided to eliminate her,” a police officer told local media, according to The Guardian.