Rape, killing of 3 girls outrage Indians
Source: Agencies |
February 23, 2013, Saturday
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POLICE were searching villages in west India yesterday for suspects in the rape and killing of three young sisters, as Indians still angry over the fatal gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus in December face another heinous sexual attack.
The bodies of the sisters - aged 7, 9 and 11 - were found on February 16 in a village well in Bhandara district in Maharashtra after they had gone missing from school two days earlier, said police officer Abhinav Deshmukh. The area is more than 1,000 kilometers south of New Delhi, the capital.
The victims' mother said police did not take the case seriously and did nothing for several days until villagers held protests.
Deshmukh said yesterday that 10 teams of 30 investigators were working on the case and that he was confident they would find the killers soon.
Police first dismissed the deaths as accidental, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Enraged villagers forced shops to close, burned tires and blocked a national highway passing in the area for hours earlier this week, demanding justice.
Police eventually registered a case of rape and murder after a post-mortem of the girls found that they had been sexually abused and brutally killed.
One police officer has been suspended for not acting promptly, Indian Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, who represents Bhandara district in Parliament, said on Thursday.
Cabinet Minister Manish Tewari called the killings a "very, very heinous assault" and said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was sending 1 million rupees (US$18,300) to the girls' family.
A new law has increased the prison sentences for rape from the existing seven to 10 years to a maximum of 20 years. It also provides for the death penalty in extreme cases of rape.
The bodies of the sisters - aged 7, 9 and 11 - were found on February 16 in a village well in Bhandara district in Maharashtra after they had gone missing from school two days earlier, said police officer Abhinav Deshmukh. The area is more than 1,000 kilometers south of New Delhi, the capital.
The victims' mother said police did not take the case seriously and did nothing for several days until villagers held protests.
Deshmukh said yesterday that 10 teams of 30 investigators were working on the case and that he was confident they would find the killers soon.
Police first dismissed the deaths as accidental, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Enraged villagers forced shops to close, burned tires and blocked a national highway passing in the area for hours earlier this week, demanding justice.
Police eventually registered a case of rape and murder after a post-mortem of the girls found that they had been sexually abused and brutally killed.
One police officer has been suspended for not acting promptly, Indian Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, who represents Bhandara district in Parliament, said on Thursday.
Cabinet Minister Manish Tewari called the killings a "very, very heinous assault" and said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was sending 1 million rupees (US$18,300) to the girls' family.
A new law has increased the prison sentences for rape from the existing seven to 10 years to a maximum of 20 years. It also provides for the death penalty in extreme cases of rape.
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