Six men were arrested on Thursday in connection with the rape and murder of two teenage Dalit sisters in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri, a day after the girls were found hanging from a tree in an orchard.
Police sources said the post-mortem report had revealed that the girls, aged 15 and 17, were raped and then strangled.
The arrested persons have been identified as Gautam Kumar alias Chotu, Mohammad Suhail, Hafizur Rehman alias Majhalka, Mohammad Junaid, Mohammad Karimuddin and Arif Hussain.
Junaid was arrested following an encounter around 8.30am on Thursday during which he suffered a bullet wound in his left leg, the police said.
“My daughters were cutting fodder for cattle a few metres from our home when four youths came on two motorcycles and forcibly took them away. They pushed me when I tried to resist. We looked for them frantically. After about two hours, a villager informed us that they were hanging from a tree in an orchard near the village,” the mother of the two girls told reporters on Thursday.
