2 teenagers gang raped in India

Two teenagers have been gang raped in separate incidents in India in the past four days, highlighting a rape epidemic that shows no sign of abating despite tougher penalties introduced last month.

Police said they had not made any arrests in either case.

One victim was a 16-year-old girl who committed suicide after being raped by eight men on Sunday in the Nuh district of the northern state of Haryana, senior police official Nazneen Bhasin told Reuters.

On Tuesday, a 19-year-old woman was raped by five men, including the driver of an autorickshaw she hailed in another district of the same state.

The driver duped the woman into believing that she had missed her bus and offered to drop her off at another bus depot, said a police spokesman, Ravindra Kumar, citing the victim's complaint. She was then taken to a deserted area near Gurugram town and raped by the driver and four accomplices who were waiting there, Kumar said.

"A case of gang rape has been registered after the medical examination of the victim confirmed the same," Kumar said.

The incidents come less than a month after India approved the death penalty for the rape of girls younger than 12, and increased the prison term for the rape of older girls and women following nationwide disgust over a particularly gruesome rape and murder of a Muslim girl in Jammu & Kashmir state.