*When a 12-year-old girl failed to return from school in Sagar, in India’s Madhya Pradesh, her family launched a search and her father filed a “missing” complaint with the police.
A day later, her mutilated body was found on March 14 and police now say she was gang raped by her brothers and uncle before being strangled and beheaded by an aunt.
According to NDTV, police grew suspicious after the girl’s uncle, who is one of the accused, tried to mislead the investigators by claiming a man in the village, with whom the family had a fight over a land dispute, had killed her.
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Girl, 12, ‘gang-raped by her uncle and brothers before being strangled by her aunt’ and then beheaded in shocking sex attack in India https://t.co/E4wjXLquq8
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 19, 2019
The Daily Mail reports that a postmortem examination revealed the pre-teen had been raped after being kidnapped by family members.
Police say she was taken to her uncle’s house by a brother, where she gang-raped by the two men and a second brother.
When she threatened to tell the police, the young girl was strangled by her aunt before being beheaded and dumped in a field.
Senior police officer Amit Sanghi told NDTV: “Our two senior officers collected all evidence and recorded the statements of the family members. When everything was pieced together, we found that she was raped and murdered by her brothers and uncle. We arrested the uncle and one of the brothers.”
Blood-stained clothes and the murder weapon were also found.
Police are reportedly on the hunt for another of the victim’s brothers.
One Twitter user reacted to the news by commenting: “India should be banned from all international institutions and also from world trade until such crimes are extinguished. We are no longer in the age of the caves.”
Sexual violence in India has reached epidemic levels, and victims are often threatened against reporting the incidents to authorities.