• Two teenage sisters were discovered hanging from a tree in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
• Their bodies were discovered on Wednesday afternoon in the Lakhimpur district, said police.
• Opposition leaders have accused the state’s chief minister of running a lawless government.

In a suspected case of rape and murder, two teenage sisters were discovered hanging from a tree in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The bodies were discovered on Wednesday afternoon in the Lakhimpur district, according to police. They launched an investigation after the family claimed the girls were kidnapped and raped.

Six men have been arrested on rape and murder charges.

According to police, the bodies have been sent for a post-mortem examination.

Both of the girls, both under the age of 18, belonged to the Dalit caste, which is at the bottom of a deeply discriminatory Hindu hierarchy.

Despite constitutional safeguards, the community faces prejudice and violence on a regular basis; a 2020 case involving the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district sparked a public outcry, highlighting how vulnerable Dalit women were.

Locals and opposition parties have also protested in this case.

The girls knew the accused, according to police, but their family denies this and claims they were abducted.

According to local media, the girl’s mother stated that they were abducted by men on motorcycles. She claims she was assaulted when she attempted to stop them.

According to the family, they started looking for the girls and eventually found them hanging from a tree.

According to Sanjeev Suman, the district police chief, the girls were taken to a sugarcane field and raped and strangled to death.

“The accused then hanged their bodies from the tree to make it look like suicide,” Mr Suman added, according to Mainstream media of the country.

According to police, one of the accused was apprehended after a “police encounter” or a shoot-out while attempting to flee.

According to local media, when police arrived at the girls’ home on Wednesday night, they were met with some resistance, as locals had joined the family in protest.

The Dalit community has a deep distrust of the police. Following the assault in Hathras, authorities were accused of indifference and of shielding the upper caste accused. The victim’s family also claimed that she was cremated without giving them the opportunity to say their final goodbyes.

Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, is the most populous state, with over 200 million people – and a history of violence against women and Dalits.

Critics argue that despite all of the attention and new anti-rape laws, there is no evidence that crimes against women are decreasing in India.

The deaths of the two sisters have sparked outrage against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, with opposition leaders accusing him of running a lawless government.

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