Six men were detained on Thursday in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on suspicion of raping and murdering two young girls whose bodies were discovered hanging from a tree the previous day.
The 15- and 17-year-old Dalit girls were discovered hanging from a tree in a sugarcane field close to their home in the Lakhimpur Kheri district, according to authorities.
Dalits, historically known as “untouchables,” are annually the target of thousands of attacks.
According to a preliminary inquiry, the sisters left their home on Wednesday and met with two of the accused men, with whom they may have had a romantic relationship, said police superintendent Sanjiv Suman.
He stated that the two males admitted to strangling the sisters after raping them, and then phoned two more to help dispose of the remains. Suman stated that they afterwards hung the bodies from a tree in an attempt to pass off their deaths as suicides. Two additional men were arrested in connection with the event, but the police did not disclose their alleged involvement.
In the Lakhimpur Kheri area of Uttar Pradesh, India, on Thursday, September 15, 2022, crime scene tape cordons off a tree where the remains of two adolescent girls were discovered hanging after reportedly being raped. / AP
The police received allegations of murder, assault, rape, and juvenile rape. Prashant Kumar, a senior police official, stated that a postmortem examination was conducted at a hospital and that the bodies were returned to the family for final rites.
According to the Press Trust of India news agency, the victims’ mother stated that three unidentified males and a male neighbor stole her daughters on Wednesday evening.
The act angered the villagers, who conducted a demonstration after the dead were discovered. According to local media, law enforcement has been deployed across the community to preserve order.
On social media, opposition lawmakers assailed the state administration and chief minister, who is a member of the Bhartiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In India, reports of rape are disturbingly common. In 2020, the gang rape and murder of a Dalit woman sparked outrage across the nation, leading to protests in the streets. A month had passed since a 13-year-old Dalit girl had been raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh.
The AFP reported that the Uttar Pradesh authorities’ hasty cremation of a Dalit rape victim slain by an upper-caste Hindu caused considerable indignation in 2013.
Since the 2012 gang rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi, rape and sexual assault have been in the spotlight. The attack sparked widespread demonstrations and prompted legislators to mandate the establishment of specialized rape courts and harsher penalties for those convicted of the crime.
However, India has struggled to combat its chronic sexual assault against women epidemic. In January of this year, police in New Delhi detained eleven individuals, including nine women, in connection with the alleged gang rape and torture of a young woman, which included parading her around the streets.
More than 32,000 rapes were recorded in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available from the government. This equates to an average of roughly four rapes per hour over the course of a year, and these data represent only the recorded occurrences of rape, not other forms of sexual violence.