Two teenage girls age 14 and 15 were gang-raped, then killed
and found hanging in a mango tree, the officials said 29-05-2014 Thursday that
at least two of the suspects are police officers.
The bodies of the girls, ages 14 and 15, were found early
28-05-2014 Wednesday near their home in Katra village in Budaun, Uttar Pradesh
state, after they had gone missing according to police.
Villagers who were upset by the police response
reportedly blocked roads and refused to allow authorities to remove the bodies
from the tree for hours, until charges of rape and murder were registered
against several men. The local police chief had allegedly ignored a report
Tuesday indicating that the girls were missing, villagers said.
The girls apparently had left their home, where there was
no toilet, to relieve themselves. Relatives said they began looking for the
girls soon after they went outside.
Police arrested two officers and two men from the village
and were searching for more suspects.
Autopsies confirmed that the girls had been raped and
strangled before the hanging, police Supt. Atul Saxena said, according to the
Associated Press.
The station chief in Katra, 180 miles northwest of the
state capital, Lucknow, was suspended, the news service reported. India last
year passed anti-rape legislation in response to public anger over the fatal
gang rape in December 2012 of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student.
