Uttar Pradesh: 2 Dalit minor sisters raped, murdered & hanged; govt vows 'soul-shivering' action

Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, was back to headlines for wrong reasons after two Dalit sisters, aged 17 and 15, were raped, murdered and hung from a tree in Lakhimpur Kheri area by five men, leaving a village seething with anger and accusing the police of handling the case insensitively. Six people were arrested in connection to the crime and one of the accused was held following an encounter with the cops in which he suffered a bullet injury.

The six accused were Suhail, Junaid, Hafizul Rehman, Karimuddin, Arif, and Chotu, a neighbour of the dead girls who allegedly introduced them to the other men, NDTV reported.

'Souls of their coming generations will shiver'

The Bharatiya Janata Party government of UP has assured swift action and justice with deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak saying on Thursday (15) that such will be the action that souls of the culprits' next generations will also shiver, India Today reported.

"Junaid, Sohail, Hafizul, Karimuddin and Arif were involved in the incident. Girls were strangled to death and then hanged. Government will take such an action that the souls of their coming generations will also shiver," Pathak said.

Speaking exclusively to India Today TV, he added, "A high-level investigation has been ordered into the matter and the guilty won't be spared. The government is standing with the family of the victim and the situation is being monitored by me."

Autopsy reports confirmed that the two girls were raped and strangled. They were reportedly taken to a sugarcane field where they were raped by Suhail and Junaid, district police chief Sanjeev Suman told reporters. The others helped them to get rid of them.

The sisters willingly went with Suhail and Junaid in their two-wheelers, the police said, adding that they were "friends" with the two men who belong to a neighbouring village. However, the girls' family alleged that they were kidnapped, NDTV added.

"The girls were raped in the fields. When they insisted that the men marry them, the men strangled them with their dupattas. Then the men called Karimuddin and Arif for help with covering up the crime. They hung the bodies from the tree to make it look like suicide," the police added.

The girls' mother told the police that the duo were abducted three hours before they were discovered dead. She alleged that three young men forcibly took them in motorcycles. The family later found their bodies hanging from a tree near the sugarcane field. They were hanging by their own dupattas. The bodies had no visible injuries.

The police faced the villagers' wrath when they went to the girls' house to take their bodies for autopsy. They blocked their roads, prompting Suman to ask them to stop blocking the way.

The police rubbished the villagers' allegation of insensitive handling of the case.

"There are 1,000 cameras at the spot. We are dealing with the case with utmost sensitivity. We dealt with it peacefully. The family has no issues with us," Suman said, according to an NDTV report.

The incident in Lakhimpur has revived the horrifying memories of the 2014 incident in Badaun, UP, when the bodies of two cousin sisters were found hanging from a tree.

The opposition has attacked UP's Yogi Adityanath government over the law-and-order situation in the state.

Former Indian National Congress president Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi, "The kidnapping and murder of two minor Dalit sisters in Lakhimpur in broad daylight is a very disturbing incident. Women's safety cannot be expected from those who get the rapists released and respect them. We have to create a safe environment in the country for our sisters and girls."

He took an indirect dig at the ruling BJP over the recent release of rape convicts by the party's government in the western state of Gujarat.

Pathak, meanwhile, hit out at the opposition Samajwadi party in UP saying it was doing politics over the incident. "They should not forget the incidents that happened in their tenure and the injustice done in those cases," he said.