Last week, the Queens D.A. sent out a release about the conviction of 18-year-old Harpreet Singh, of Maspeth. The conviction followed a seriously disturbing incident: Singh had gotten in touch with a 16-year-old girl on MySpace, at first asking her for head-and-shoulder photos of herself, then asking her to send progressively more revealing images, including, finally, shots of herself nude.

Eventually (on June 23, 2008), Singh started blackmailing the girl, saying he'd post the nude photos online and send them to his friends if she refused to have sex with him. She agreed to his demand, and the next day, when she arrived at the home of his friends, he raped her, after which his friends -- Norman Gondal, Anjam Shahzad, Vikgram Singh and an unnamed juvenile -- took turns with her.

"That afternoon," the press release reads, "the girl returned home distraught and, locking herself in the bathroom, ingested medicine. She then attempted to tie a cord around her neck. Fortunately, her mother arrived home and called 911."

The thing that stood out to me initially was the fact that the defendants appeared to be South Asian. I can't remember hearing of another incident this brutal being committed by a group of young desis.

But who is the victim? Is she Indian or Pakistani as well?

We'll probably never know, but over the weekend I bumped into Purvi Shah, who formerly headed Sakhi for South Asian Women, a New York-based group that deals with domestic violence. We talked about the incident, and wondered what prompted this young, terrified woman to walk into the lion's den that day. We couldn't help but think she was even more scared of letting her community find out about her photos.

I asked Purvi to share her thoughts. Here's what she had to say:

While we cannot be certain the survivor of this horrific sexual violence was of South Asian origin, it is clear that the perpetrators were drawing upon key issues in our community, including notions of honor and a girl's reputation as well as the difficulty of speaking to dating and threats or violence in a dating context.

Regardless of whether the survivor was South Asian, but especially if she is, this case behooves us as a community to work to ensure boys and men are not enabled to commit sexual violence. This case demands that we begin to speak more openly to sexual harassment and sexual violence while starting conversations about healthy sexuality and healthy relationships so that young girls need not feel fear or family and community judgment. Most importantly, this survivor should be saluted for taking the brave step of coming forward and pursuing justice. Now it is up to us to ensure we create communities where such a situation could never happen again.

FYI, Harpreet Singh now faces 25 years in prison.

Also read The Daily News: "Queens Creep Convicted of Organizing Teen Gang Rape"