The men arrested for allegedly raping a woman in Rohtak. Image courtesy: Haryana police
Five days after a woman's naked, half-eaten body, with sticks and stones inserted in her, was found in Haryana's Rohtak, the police arrested eight men today and alleged that they had confessed to gang-raping and killing her.
A ninth man they were looking for allegedly commited suicide, the police said.
The 28-year-old woman's body was found on February 4 in a field near a highway, gnawed at by animals and with key organs missing. Two arms and the left side of the body were gone. The police said sticks, stones and condoms had been inserted 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," said Dr SK Dattarwal, who headed the post mortem examination.
All the men arrested today are from a village near Rohtak, about 80 km from Delhi.
The savage attack has been compared to the 2012 gang-rape and torture of a young medical student in a moving bus in the capital.
Three days before the woman's body was found, her sister had reported her missing. "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 the police confronted public fury, Haryana police chief Yashpal Singhal said, "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."
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 men arrested is a Nepali national.