Five men have been arrested over the gang-rape and deaths of two girls found hanging from a mango tree in a northern Indian village, police said earlier today.
The discovery of the two cousins, aged 14 and 12, in the Budaun district of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday is the latest sexual violence case to have stirred national outrage through out India.
“Rape on both the girls has been confirmed. The cause of their death was asphyxia,” Budaun district police superintendent Atul Saxena told.
Saxena said preliminary cases had been filed against five men who were all being held in custody. Three are accused of rape while two policemen face charges of conniving with criminals and neglecting their duties. Two other men were also named in a police complaint filed by the victims´ families but their whereabouts were unknown, Saxena added.
Medical tests showed the victims had been sexually assaulted multiple times.
The father told his brother heard screams from the field where the girls had gone.
The brother got into a scuffle with five men, trying “to get them to leave the daughters who were being molested”, but fled when they threatened to shoot him, the father said.
