Outcry in India

Students at a Hindu-run school for the blind joined a nationwide outcry over the gang rape of a nun in her 70s. The 50 students at the Helen Keller School near the convent where the nun lived chanted “Mother we cannot see, but we can feel your pain,” on March 17, after news of the incident three days earlier reached them, Bishop Joseph Gomes of Krishnagar, India, reported. Demonstrations throughout India called on authorities to hasten their investigation of the 10 suspects detained in connection with the incident. “This is shocking. The people are disgusted,” Bishop Gomes said of the overnight attack in which a group of masked men broke into the Jesus and Mary Congregation convent in Ranaghat, about 45 miles from Kolkata. Bishop Gomes said he visited with the hospitalized nun for a second time on March 16 and that she had forgiven her attackers. “She told me that ‘justice should be done. This should be never be repeated or happen to anyone else,’” Bishop Gomes said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed “deep concern” over the attack and promised a crackdown on religious-based violence.