by P. Jayaram, India Correspondent

FIVE policemen accused of simply standing by and watching while a crowd savagely gang-raped a young Catholic nun have been suspended, more than two months after the alleged crime took place.

The foot-dragging by the authorities in the eastern state of Orissa and several other recent incidents have again put the international spotlight on the way rape cases are handled in India.

A British woman who was raped in New Delhi said last week that Indian authorities do not take sexual assaults seriously, when her attacker was freed on bail after serving just three months of a 21-year jail sentence.

Separately, a German woman dropped a claim that her 14-year-old daughter was raped by the son of a prominent minister on a Goa beach citing pressure and intimidation.

Ms Meenakshi Ganguly, of the Human Rights Watch in Mumbai, said that these cases show that the attitude towards sexual assaults on women in India has changed little despite changes in legislation prompted by a high-profile case in the 1970s when a court acquitted two police officers of raping a teenage girl.

In the case in Orissa, the state's government suspended the policemen for not going to the aid of the bespectacled, 28-year-old nun.

But it did not act until late last month after the woman had fled the state and horrified listeners with her story at a press conference in Delhi.

During anti-Christian violence, she said a mob dragged her to the deserted office of a non-governmental organisation, raped her and then paraded her naked through the streets.

The policemen stood by and did nothing to stop the brutal assault, she said.

Last week, the woman refused to appear in an Orissa court to identify her alleged assailants and the court set another date for her to appear before it.

The church, in the meantime, is trying to move the case out of the state so that the nun would feel secure.

The German woman, Ms. Fadella Fuchs, a researcher on Indian mythology, said she was made to feel like a criminal after she alleged that her 14-year-old daughter was raped on a beach in the resort state on the Arabian Sea front.

In her letter, Ms. Fuchs said that she was afraid to press the case after her counsel Aires Rodrigues was brutally attacked the night before she was to formally register her complaint.

The incidents come at a time of a rise in the number of rape cases across the country.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics released in January this year, there were 19,348 rape cases in India in 2006, or an average of 53 a day. That is up 678 per cent since the country started recording sexual assaults in 1971.

The statistics showed that more than 18,100 people were tried for rape in 2003, but did not say how many were convicted. Some 56,000 rape cases were still pending in the courts as of October that year.

But social activists say the number is only the tip of the iceberg. For every case reported, they say, many more go unreported, particularly in rural areas.

Police inaction, indifference and even collusion with rapists as well delays in prosecuting such cases have all contributed to the rise in rapes, experts say.

The growing number of working women - many of them doing graveyard shifts that involve commuting to and from home at odd hours - have also made them more vulnerable to sexual assaults.

'Failure of the police to take action on rape complaints, loss of social values and the confidence on the part of the rapists that they can get away with it have all contributed to the rise in rape cases,' said Dr Geeta Choudhury, a Delhi psychiatrist. 'When a rapist easily secures bail using political or other clout or a court acquits him, that is an encouragement for others with a similar mindset.'

The helplessness of the victim is reflected in the letter written by the mother of the German girl to the Goa police.

'We have learnt the bitter truth, that making genuine complaints against the rich and mighty is entirely counter-productive,' she wrote. 'We are constantly hounded, our names sullied, campaigns organised against us and all sorts of motives attributed to us.'

Under current laws, rape is punishable by life imprisonment, but even some groups that oppose capital punishment have called for the death penalty for convicted rapists.

'Rape should attract a punishment only less than that for murder,' said Mr Sultan Singh, a Supreme Court lawyer. 'After all, it is tantamount to maiming the victim and leaving her with lifelong trauma.'

Ms Ganguly recommends a complete overhaul in the way India's legal system handles rape charges.

'A rape victim faces a double ordeal: on the one hand, there is a social push back, especially if it's an Indian woman as it affects her suitability for marriage and so on,' she said.

'Then, at the police station, there is an almost inevitable attitude of 'she asked for it'.'