MUMBAI: Four pupils from an Indian high school have been detained after a clip showing them gang-raping a younger student was seen by the victim’s aunt after being circulated on WhatsApp, police said on Friday.

The traumatised 15-year-old had kept quiet about the assault at the beginning of the month in Mumbai after being threatened with reprisals by her attackers who then uploaded the clip on the video messaging service. But she gave a full account of what happened after her aunt saw the video and then went to see her niece at her home earlier this week.

“The aunt rushed to the girl’s home after seeing the clip on WhatsApp and the girl broke out of her shell to narrate the whole story. They then registered the complaint and we acted,” Dhananjay Kulkarni, a deputy commissioner with the Mumbai police, said. All those detained are aged 16 to 17 years-old.

“They have confessed and are now in Dongri,” Kulkarni added in reference to a juvenile detention facility in India’s teeming commercial capital.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015