A community has been left outraged after a pair of teenage cousins who were allegedly gang raped by five men
including two police officers were found hanging from a mango tree in India.
The men have been arrested and the horrific crime has sparked a renewed wave of outcry after villagers discovered
the girls' dead bodies on Wednesday morning, hours after they disappeared from felids near their home in Katra
village in Uttar Pradesh state.
Devastated members of the victims' families and villagers who accused the police of apathy spent the day in silent
protest whilst villagers sat under the girls' bodies as they swung in the wind, preventing authorities from taking
them down until the suspects were arrested.
The attack is the latest to highlight India's dismal record on preventing sexual violence, despite tougher laws and
efforts to change attitudes towards women.
It follows the fatal gang rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012 which shook the nation's conscience.
Earlier this year, a young girl was gang-raped in a remote village in West Bengal state on orders from tribal
village elders who objected to her relationship with a Muslim man.
Autopsies confirmed the girls had been gang raped and strangled before being hanged.
The family belongs to the Dalit community, also called Untouchables and considered the lowest rung in India's caste
system.
