Young India girls raped, murdered and dumped in well, police say as manhunt begins

Indians participate in a candlelight vigil protesting against a leader of the ruling Congress party on accusations he raped a woman in a village in the early hours of the morning in Gauhati, India, Jan. 4, 2013. / AP Photo

Updated 6:00 p.m. ET

Indian police said Thursday that they have launched a manhunt for men suspected of raping and killing three sisters, aged 5 to 11, in the latest case of sexual violence to grip the country.

The sisters' bodies were found in a village well in Bhandara district in Maharashtra state on Feb. 14 after they had gone missing from school, police officer Javed Ahmed said. The area is more than 1,000 kilometers (630 miles) south of New Delhi, the capital.

As the victims' mother accused police of a shoddy investigation, enraged villagers forced shops to close, burned tires and blocked a national highway passing through the area for several hours on Wednesday, demanding justice.

"The police did not take the case seriously and did nothing for two days," the CNN-IBN television news channel quoted the mother as saying. Her name was withheld.

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One police officer has been suspended for not acting promptly, Indian Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, who represents Bhandara district in Parliament, told reporters in New Delhi.

"It is unacceptable. All of us have to hang our heads in shame," Patel said.

Cabinet Minister Manish Tewari called the killings a "very, very heinous assault" and announced that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was sending 1 million rupees ($18,300) to the family. The central government has asked state investigators to keep them informed of the investigation.

The fatal gang rape of a young woman in a moving bus in New Delhi on Dec. 16 set off nationwide protests about India's treatment of women. Five men are being tried on rape and murder charges.

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India's women revolt against a culture of rape

CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reported from New Delhi this week that India is having a cultural crisis after the brutal attack in the capital. That crime unleashed a wave of protests over the treatment of women in Indian society.

Thousands of protestors have taken to the streets, angry over what they say is an epidemic of harassment and violence against women.

Garima Shrivastara organized some of the protests. She says that Indian women live with fear every day.

[Pearleaf]

I would like to know how people raise their sons in India? Apparently, women are constantly harassed by men when they go outside. Even animals don't behave as badly as Indian men.

[MarisolEnrique]

This SEXUAL CRIME is so vile, so evil and so shockingly hideous! This is precisely why this hateful scourge of evil rapists in your society must be dealt with by the harshest of means and that is the death penalty! The entire world is watching and now fully recognizes the poisonous, depraved, barbaric infestation that is ravaging your country. These animals are worse than the TALIBAN in Afghanistan. SHAME ON THE POLICE for not taking this case seriously and searching for the little girls right away. Even after finding the dead little girls at the bottom of a well, police shamefully called it 'accidental' or 'suicide'. Villagers had to demand action before medical examinations revealed the girls had been brutally raped, sodomized, and murdered. WHAT A TERRIBLE DERELICTION OF DUTY OF INDIA'S POLICE!!

[MarisolEnrique]

This SEXUAL CRIME is so vile, so evil and so shockingly hideous! This is precisely why this hateful scourge of evil rapists in your society must be dealt with by the harshest of means and that is the death penalty! The entire world is watching and now fully recognizes the poisonous, depraved, barbaric infestation that is ravaging your country. These animals are worse than the TALIBAN in Afghanistan. SHAME ON THE POLICE for not taking this case seriously and searching for the girls right away. Even after finding the dead little girls at the bottom of a well, police shamefully called it 'accidental'. Villagers had to demand action before medical examinations revealed the girls had been brutally raped and murdered. WHAT A TERRIBLE DERELICTION OF DUTY OF INDIA'S POLICE!!

[KPeters_from_UK]

Americans need to be careful that the "Developing" and Third World mentality of women does not infiltrate back into the States. We have a bubbling misogynistic attitude just at the political surface we need to rein in.

1. Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, a conservative Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that women's bodies can prevent pregnancies in the case of "a legitimate rape," adding that conception in such cases is rare.


2. Mike Huckabee: Rapes create 'extraordinary' people | Mail Online
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Mike-Huckabee-Rapes-create-extraordinary-...3 hours ago - ... presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has said 'forcible rape' creates 'extraordinary' people as he defends Rep. Todd Akin's rape comments.


3. October, 2012 A Wisconsin state representative is drawing heat for saying that his father had told him when he was young that "some girls rape easy" as a way to warn him that a woman could agree to sex but then later claim that it wasn't consensual.

Freshman Wisconsin Rep. Roger Rivard (R-Rice Lake) in December discussed a case with the Chetek Alert newspaper in which a 17-year-old high school senior was charged with sexual assault for having sex with an underage girl in the school's band room.


4. Sharron Angle, who ran for a US Senate seat out of Nevada, said she would tell a young girl wanting an abortion after being raped and impregnated by her father that "two wrongs don't make a right" and that she should make a "lemon situation into lemonade".


5. Douglas Henry, a Tennessee state senator, told his colleagues: "Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse."


Most bizarre is from a woman:
6. Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly declared that marital rape doesn't exist, because when you get married you sign up to be sexually available to your husband at all times.

[MarisolEnrique]

Tell me, what ON EARTH does this have to do with the article??RULES SAY TO COMMENT ON THE ARTICLE, NOTHING ELSE!!!

[rwsmith29456]

Those real he-men that killed three young girls will show the rest of India what to do with women's rights.

[MIO42]

C'mon India, No more Excuses
Clean up your act
Killing,Vendettas,Brutality,Rape,Incest,and Savagery toward your fellow human beings is off the wall and pays no dividends
Other than to show the viciousness of Indian Society , Pakistan not much better either

[SiDeVilIam]

****** up Hindutva and [e-mail]

[linfinster]

Hopefully the JAWS CONDOM can be accessed. Not the best solution or even a good one. But times being what they are, if I were living there, I'd def consider using one. It's revolting to think some men over there think that behavior is okay!

[secretangel20]

I agree with you, women have a right to do whatever possible to protect themselves from these attacks

[hypnotoad72]

Well, if the rightwingers were claiming all OWS people were vermin because of a few occupiers robbing and hurting others, what are they saying now?

[wizard800]

These are children. This is an example of no matter how educated (remember Germany in the 2nd world war) when you treat one class of people differently there is vast opportunity for abuse. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Males in India need to step up and take responsibility that their moral compass is wrong. I don't care if a female is waking down the street in her birthday suit their is no right to abuse her. None. Never.

[hypnotoad72]

In America, we are told that countries that use child labor are normal to their eyes, even if Americans see it as being wrong.

Why is it our media and other vested interest pick and choose which pet topics are used to (effectively) meddle in other countries with?

And I agree with you - there is no excuse for people hurting others for self gain, of which rape is a fairly cut and dry example of such a thing.

[mgunn89512]

Isn't the whole point of a caste system to treat one class differently from another?