WARNING: Graphic content 

A crowd cheered and called for a woman to be raped in the streets of an Indian neighbourhood, and shockingly many of them were female. 

Horrifying details of the crime, which took place last month, have emerged after at least 12 people allegedly involved in the incident were arrested by Delhi police, CNN reported. They included eight women and two minors. 

News of the attack has sent shockwaves across the country, which has long struggled to deal with high levels of gender violence despite a push for women's rights over recent years. 

The attack took place on the morning of January 26 against a 20-year-old married woman, who was abducted and physically and sexually assaulted including having her hair cut off and face painted black before being paraded in the street. 

Video of the attack shared on social media reportedly shows a crowd surrounding the woman, however it's unknown whether the people in the video were involved in the assault. 

Police have not pressed any charges over the incident. 

The victim's 18-year-old sister, who wished to remain anonymous, told CNN she was forced to watch part of the assault. 

"I was thinking of shouting, of telling someone, but the (accused) women grabbed me, saying they would beat me up," she said. 

She claims her sister was attacked by relatives of a teenage boy who committed suicide after she turned down his advances. 

"They (the alleged perpetrators) blamed her, but she didn't do anything. I never thought they would go this far." 

She said an angry mob attacked her sister when she went downstairs for a delivery and they also tried to grab the victim's 2-year-old son but she managed to hold on to him while her sister was taken to a rickshaw. 

She followed in another rickshaw and after a short drive to the residential Kasturba Nagar area it stopped, but she couldn't see her sister so she went inside her home and locked the door. 

Soon after she heard noises from outside and saw her sister being hit with rods, shoved and slapped for at least 30 minutes. 

A woman cries over the death of a 23-year-old gang rape victim in New Delhi in 2012. Photo / AP 

"They started hitting and beating my sister. This was happening in front of me, but I just stood there, I didn't know what to do … I was frozen with fear. 

"I couldn't believe no one in the neighbourhood spoke up or tried to help, they only cheered." 

Next, she said she called police. 

Deputy police commissioner of Shahdara district R Sathiyasundaram said an investigation is underway and declined to confirm details of the attack. 

However, Swati Maliwal, the chairwoman of the Delhi Commission of Women, said the woman told her she'd been raped by three men. 

"There were women present (in the room) … instigating the men to be more brutal with her," Maliwal said she was told by the victim. 

"When I saw that video and I saw these women attacking this girl … it just makes you feel so angry and sad that you have such women who can do something like that." 

Lawyer Seema Kushwaha, who represented a 23-year-old student who died after being gang-raped on a Delhi bus in 2012, said that while many Indians were surprised that women would be part of the crowd calling for a female to be raped, others expect such acts as the country has societal issues. 

They include women being taught they're to blame for wrongdoings, also women often police other women's behaviour or clothing. 

"If fighting crimes against women is a fight of the female gender, women should have supported the girl," Kushwaha told CNN. 

"But they did not do that, they instead beat her up because it has been ingrained in them that whatever men do, it is women who are responsible." 

The attack comes just months after another shocking sexual assault in India, where a 16-year-old claimed she was raped by at least 400 men. Seven men were arrested over the shocking case. 

The homeless girl said she was attacked while begging for money in the Beed district of Maharashtra state. 

Images taken from a video being circulated on social media show a woman paraded down the street after being physically and sexually assaulted. Photo / Supplied 

Earlier this year an Indian teen was gang-raped for an hour after being promised a Covid-19 vaccine. 

In August a 9-year-old, "low-caste" girl was allegedly raped and murdered while fetching water, sparking protests in India. 

A report in 2019 found there were 32,033 rape cases in India that year, or an average of 88 cases each day. The nation was ranked the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman in a 2018 Thompson Reuters Foundation survey of experts on women's issues. 

Crimes against women were 20 per cent higher in 2020 compared to 2013, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau.