Brazilian police are searching for more than 30 men suspected of having raped a teenage girl in Rio de Janeiro and uploaded the video of the attack on social media.
Police said they have indentified four people who were involved in the heinous crime. This includes one man who appeared in the video, the girl's boyfriend and two other people who were heard on the video. Arrest warrants have been issued, police said, even as the incident drew global condemnation.
The police also said they are investigating not only rape allegations but also possible violations of Brazil's Internet laws.
"The extreme violence we're dealing (with) has shocked everyone. It even shocked the police,"
Fernando Veloso, the head of the civil police in Rio de Janeiro said, according to CNN.
The 16-year-old victim believes that she was doped after going to her boyfriend's house on Saturday and says she woke up in a different house, where she was surrounded by the men.
She is reported to have given a statement to the police saying she woke up on Sunday, naked and wounded, and somehow managed to go back home. After a few days she realized that some of the alleged rapists had uploaded images and a 40-second-video of the incident on Twitter.
The Twitter user's accounts were suspended soon after this. This incident created a huge impact on the social media where it provoked a campaign against 'a culture of rape' in Brazil.
On Twitter, hashtags such as #EstuproNaoÉCulpaDaVitima meaning "rape is not the victim's fault" in Portuguese were the top global trends.
On the other hand, many Facebook users in Brazil, including suspended President Dilma Rousseff, changed their profile pictures to the Venus female gender symbol with words calling for an end to this "culture of rape".
In a Facebook message, the victim thanked everyone for the support and said: "I really thought I was going to be badly judged."
She added: "All of us can go through this one day. It does not hurt the uterus but the soul because there are cruel people not being punished!! Thanks for the support."
Brazil's interim President Michel Temer wrote on his Twitter account that he "vehemently repudiates" the alleged rape, and said that "it is absurd that in the 21st century we have to live with barbaric crimes like this."
