Hanged girls took their own lives
Two girls found hanging earlier this year in northern India committed suicide and were not gang-raped and murdered as previously thought, federal investigators said yesterday.
The cousins, aged 12 and 14, were found hanging from a tree in an impoverished village in Uttar Pradesh state in May, reigniting international outrage over crimes against women in India.
The girls' families said they were raped and lynched by men from a higher caste after going into the fields at night to relieve themselves because their ramshackle homes did not have toilets.
But after a months-long investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said it "has concluded that it is a case of suicide".
"Based on 40 scientific reports, CBI has concluded that the two minor girls had not been raped and murdered as had been alleged in the (initial police report)," the agency said in a statement.
Police arrested five men over the case in Uttar Pradesh after the families accused authorities of failing to act because they came from a lower caste.
All five were later released without charge.
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