Women in a Rohtak village protesting the brutal gang-rape and murder of a woman last week
Five days after a woman's naked, half-eaten body was found in Haryana's Rohtak, with sticks and stones inserted in her, the police claim to have arrested eight men who have allegedly confessed to gang-raping and killing her.
The 28-year-old woman's body was found gnawed at by animals and with key organs missing; two arms and the left side of the body was gone. The police said sticks, stones and condoms were stuffed into her private parts.
"I have never seen such a horrific case in 30 years. The injuries suggest she was hit on the head with a heavy object, became partly unconscious and was then gang-raped. Animals and rodents had eaten bits of the body," said SK Dattarwal, who headed the post mortem examination.
All the arrested men are from one village nine km from Rohtak. The police are searching for a ninth man for the savage attack that has been compared to the 2012 gang-rape and torture of a young medical student in a moving bus.
The woman's mutilated body was found on February 4, three days after she was reported missing by her sister.
"The police did not take my complaint seriously. They said you keep looking for her...you will find her or maybe she will return. If they had acted promptly, she would have been alive," the sister said, adding, "We want the killers to be hanged."
As they confronted public fury, the police prayed for luck in cracking the case.
"We are not lacking in manpower or vehicles. The one thing we are short of is luck. If luck is with us, then we will solve the case," said Chandigarh police chief Yashpal Singal, who is in Rohtak to oversee the investigations.
The woman had come from Nepal three months ago and was staying with her sister while being treated at a hospital. The police say one of the arrested men is a Nepali national.
Haryana, which has among the worst records of sexual crimes in the country, was chosen for the launch of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Beti Bachao, Beti Padao (Save girls, educate girls)" campaign for the girl child last month.