Six arrested over rape, murder of Indian sisters

LUCKNOW, India: Indian police on Thursday arrested six men accused of gang-raping and murdering two teenage sisters whose bodies were found hanging from a tree outside their village, prompting protests.

The sisters aged 15 and 17 were from the Dalit community, the lowest rung in the Hindu caste system, who suffer disproportionately high levels of sexual violence in a country with high rates of crime against women.

Local police chief Sanjiv Suman told AFP that the men had on Wednesday lured the girls to a field where they sexually assaulted them and then "killed them by strangling them with their scarves".

Scores of locals including the family of the teenagers held street protests near their village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, demanding swift punishment for the accused. One of the main suspects, who was a neighbour of the girls, was arrested following a firefight with police when he was shot in the leg. The accused belonged to both the Hindu and Muslim communities. An autopsy report confirmed sexual assault and asphyxiation as the cause of death, Suman said.