Dalit teens – raped, hung from tree in UP – cremated after kin promised aid

The two dalit sisters aged around 15 and 17, who were allegedly raped and hung from a tree in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri district were cremated on Thursday.

Family members of the two deceased girls had earlier refused to complete the final rites until their demands were met. They demanded ₹1 crore compensation, a government job for the girls’ brother, and death penalty for the accused.

According to reports, the family agreed to conduct the last rites after assurance of financial help from the state and the case to be tried in a fast-track court.

Seeking justice, the girls’ father said the “perpetrators should be executed”.

The victims’ mother said that three men from a nearby village took the girls on bike, and their bodies were discovered two hours later. They were tied with a scarf from a tree in a sugarcane field a kilometre away. The bodies were discovered on Wednesday evening, and a post-mortem report later revealed the sisters were raped and killed.

Six people have been taken into custody pertaining to the case. The men have been identified as Sohail, Hafizur Rehman, Karimuddin, Arif, Chottu, and Junaid. Lakhimpur Kheri police superintendent Sanjiv Suman said they were arrested in an overnight operation, and that Junaid and Sohail were in a relationship with the sisters.