Five men
held on suspicion of raping and murdering two teenage girls who were
found hanging from a mango tree in India will not be charged with any
offences, investigators said today.
Young
cousins, Murti and Pushpa, aged 14 and 15, were found dead in the
village of Katra in northern Uttar Pradesh state in May this year.
Their
killings provoked national outrage after it emerged that police in the
village initially refused to investigate due to the girls' low-caste
status.
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Cousins Murti and Pushpa were found
hanging from a mango tree in the village of Katra in northern Uttar
Pradesh after going missing in May this year
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Murti's grief-stricken father Sohan
vowed to get justice for his daughter after police initially failed to
investigate the girls' killings because of their low-caste status
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Murti's mother, pictured, said she
wanted the killers to be hanged in order to secure justice. But it
emerged today that the five men held in relation to the killings will
not be charged
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The girls were reported to have been
gang-raped and murdered after going into the fields to relieve
themselves because their homes, pictured, like most villages in the
district, did not have toilets
Three
brothers, Pappu, Awadhesh and Urvesh - who are members of the dominant
Yadav caste, to which most of the local police belong - were quickly
arrested and later admitted attacking and killing the young girls.
Two
police officers were also arrested for allegedly ignoring the victims'
parents when they reported that the girls were missing.
But
now the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's top
investigative agency, has said it would not 'as yet' file charges
against the men.
Announcing the news today, the CBI said there was a lack of evidence to carry out a prosecution.
But
a spokesman for the agency - which took on the case after it was
initially investigated by state police - did not rule out future
charges.
Kanchan
Prasad said: 'Based on our investigations so far, we are not going to
file the charge-sheet at this stage. However, no one has been given a
clean sheet as yet.'
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Police and locals had to guard the
tree after the girls had been found. The investigation was initially led
by state police but was moved to the CBI, India's top investigatory
body
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Bodyguards had to stand near the tree where the bodies of the two girls were found after riots broke out
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Protests took place in the state, demanding the girls' killers be brought to justice
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Despite the national outrage, one
leading officer said the deaths could have been honour killings by the
girls' families. A further investigation found there was no evidence of
sexual assault
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A woman protesting over the killings.
India brought in tougher rape laws last year for crimes against women
after the fatal gang-rape of a physiotherapy student on a bus in New
Delhi in December 2012
After
they were found, the girls were reported to have been gang-raped and
murdered after going into the fields to relieve themselves.
They
had gone to the fields because their homes, like most in their village
in Badaun district, did not have toilets, their families said.
A local post-mortem examination also confirmed multiple sexual assaults and death due to hanging.
But
when the case was handed over to the CBI, a forensic investigation into
clothing and swabs concluded the girls were not sexually assaulted.
Villagers watched on as police investigated into the death of the teenage cousins
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At the time, locals said they were worried they would be targeted for retribution by the police and other high-caste people
India's
Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) reported that it
found no proof of sexual assault on the girls' clothes.
Even before the CDFD report surfaced, regional police had cast doubt on whether the girls had been sexually assaulted.
The head of police in the UP state instead suggested they could have been victims of so-called 'honour' killings.
Anand
Lal Bannerjee claimed only one of the cousins had been raped and they
had in fact been strangled before their bodies were strung up on the
tree.
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Women took part in a protest in New Delhi after the case caused outrage across all of India
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Vigil: Several activists lit a candles on the Delhi pavement as part of memorial protests
He
said: 'According to the postmortem report of the deceased, one of the
girls was not raped and it appears to be a case of honour killing. We
are probing the matter.
'We
will conduct a lie detection test on all the accused who have been
arrested. If needed, we will take the accused to Bangalore for the test
and get the results.'
The
men are expected to be released on Friday after 90 days in detention,
the maximum time that a person can be held without being charged in
India.
At
the time, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was
'especially appalled' by the alleged rape and murder of the two girls.
Their
deaths led to protests in New Delhi and other Indian cities, in an echo
of the outpouring of grief which came when a student was raped and
killed on a bus in the capital in 2012.
India
brought in tougher rape laws last year for crimes against women after
the fatal gang-rape of a physiotherapy student on a bus in New Delhi in
December 2012.
