The bodies of the girls, aged 15 and 17, were found hanging from a tree by their own saliva near their home in Lakhimpur district on Wednesday evening. They belonged to the Dalit caste, the lowest in India’s hierarchical and discriminatory Hindu caste system, which used to regard Dalits as “untouchables”. Police said an autopsy confirmed that both sisters were raped after being dragged into a sugarcane field and then strangled to death, before hanging from the tree to make their deaths look like suicides. Six men, including a neighbor of the family, have been arrested and charged with crimes including rape, murder and aiding and abetting the murder. “The girls were raped in the fields. When the men insisted on marrying them, they strangled them with their dupattas [shawls]District Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Suman told reporters. According to the police, the men, who were all from the same village, were known to the girls and the couple had willingly joined them on Wednesday afternoon. The mother of the two girls disputed that account and said two of the men showed up at the house on Wednesday afternoon and forcibly took her daughters away on a scooter. “I tried to stop them and ran after them, but they hit me and ran away. I shouted and ran back to ask the villagers for help,” he told local media. The police handed the bodies back to the family but refused to carry out the cremation until the government promised a speedy trial and compensation. The incident sparked local protests and criticism of the ruling Uttar Pradesh government, led by hardline Hindu nationalist monk Yogi Adityanath, who has been accused of not doing enough to protect women from rape and sexual violence, particularly those from poor and lower caste backgrounds . backgrounds. In 2020, there was a massive outcry after a Dalit girl was raped and murdered in Hathras, another district in Uttar Pradesh. Brajesh Pathak, Uttar Pradesh’s deputy chief minister, said the perpetrators would face “such an act that the souls of their future generations will shudder. Justice will be served.” The incident highlighted the ongoing rape and violence against women scandal in India, which was named the most dangerous country to be a woman in a 2018 poll by the Reuters Foundation. Last month, the Indian National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported a 19% increase in rape cases last year compared to 2020, averaging 87 cases a day. NCRB data also shows that there was a 45% increase in reported rape of Dalit women between 2015 and 2020. However, the true extent of sexual violence against women and girls in India is believed to be much higher than the evidence suggests, especially in the Dalit community where there is widespread under-reporting of rape. One estimate, based on government data, concluded that 99% of sexual assault cases go unreported. Jacqui Hunt, global head of sexual violence for the advocacy group Equality Now, said: “The horrific reported rape and murder of these two young brothers joins a heartbreaking list of horrific caste-based crimes of sexual violence that have sparked public outcry in India.” The group has documented the plight of Dalit women in India, who suffer disproportionately sexual violence but lack access to justice. In June, a 13-year-old Dalit girl was found gang-raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district. In 2021, a nine-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped. A six-year-old Dalit girl was raped two days later in a separate incident in Delhi. Hunt was critical of the “lack of significant efforts” to address caste-based sexual violence, even as cases continued to come to the fore. “Systemic change is desperately needed, incorporating good laws and safeguards that are effectively implemented to protect caste minorities and support the accountability of perpetrators,” he said.
