Katra Village, India – Three brothers have confessed to involvement in the gang rape of two teenage girls in India, a police officer told CNN. The men have pleaded guilty to the rape charges but have not admitted to killing the girls, local police spokesman Mukesh Saxena said Sunday.
All five known suspects, including two police officers, have been arrested, he said.
The police complaint also names two unknown people in the case. Investigations are trying to determine their identity, Saxena said.
The assault on the cousins, ages 14 and 16, sparked outrage in the community in Uttar Pradesh state. After being gang raped, they were hanged from a mango tree, police said.
The initial post-mortem report suggests that the two girls were alive when they were hanged, Saxena told CNN on Wednesday.
“The (autopsy) report is the basis of our investigation. The cause of the death is also being verified further through various other forensic and scientific methods,” he said.
Villagers streamed into the homes of the girls’ relatives, weeping behind their customary veils. The mother of one of the girls said her daughter wanted to become a doctor to escape grinding poverty.
The attackers, she said, deserved the same fate that befell her daughter.
“Hang them in public,” she said.
CNN cannot identify the relatives or victims under Indian law.
In the northern village where the attack occurred, crowds surrounded the girls for hours after their bodies were found on May 28. They accused authorities of siding with the suspects and blocked them from taking the girls down from their nooses unless arrests were made.
In addition to possible rape and murder charges, the officers face charges of conspiracy in the crime and negligence of duty after villagers accused them of failing to respond when they first pinpointed the suspects.
An autopsy confirmed that the girls had been raped and strangled, according to authorities. They were cremated the same day the bodies were found, in line with Hindu customs, Saxena said.
“We are scared,” said Renu Devi, a woman in the village where the attack occurred.
“If this could happen to them, it could happen to us also.”…
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