adminNew Delhi — Two teenage sisters were gang-raped in a village in India’s Uttar Pradesh, the latest in a series of sexual assaults in the northern state, police said on Saturday.
The attack came barely a week after two teenage cousins were gang-raped and left hanging from a mango tree in Uttar Pradesh, which sparked outrage across the country.
In the latest incident, a 13- and 15-year-old were raped on Thursday by three men in Siyapur village of Etah district, local police official Sanjay Kumar Yadav said.
According to the girls’ family, the teenagers had left their home for a nearby flour mill when they were abducted by the men, who took them to an adjacent forested area and raped them, Yadev said.
“A medical examination has confirmed the girls were raped,” Yadev said.
“The three men have been arrested.”
Siyapur is located about 85KM south-west of the village in Badaun district where the cousins were raped.
The “mango tree rape case,” as it has been dubbed, has caused widespread outrage over the safety of women in Uttar Pradesh in particular and India in general.
Some politicians, however, have been criticised for reacting insensitively to the incidents. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav this week accused the media of biased reportage and suggested that a Google search would reveal that rapes were taking place across India and not just in Uttar Pradesh.
During an election rally in April, his father and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, had opposed capital punishment for rape, saying: “Boys will be boys. . . . They commit mistakes.” — Sapa
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