Five police officers suspended

NEW DELHI: Five senior police officers have been suspended over their handling of an investigation into the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman that has sparked outrage across India and triggered days of protests.

The seriously injured teenager from the disadvantaged Dalit caste was found in mid-September outside her village in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state and died this week in a New Delhi hospital. The police have arrested four high-caste men on charges of gang-rape and murder.

But the police have faced criticism for cremating the woman’s body in the middle of the night – reportedly with the help of some petrol – against the wishes of her family and religious custom. A senior policeman on Thursday sparked further outrage after claiming that a forensic report and an autopsy had shown that the woman had not been raped.