3 confess to gang rape of Indian girls hanged on tree

KATRA SHAHADATGANJ, India - Three brothers have confessed their involvement in the gang rape of two teenage girls in India, reports by CNN and AP, quoting a police official, said.

The men pleaded guilty to the rape charges but have not admitted to killing the girls, police spokesman Mukesh Saxena was quoted as saying on Sunday.

The police complaint also names two unknown people in the case.

Investigations are trying to determine their identity, Saxena said.

Five suspects involved in the case have been arrested, he said.

The assault on the cousins, ages 14 and 16, sparked outrage in the community in Uttar Pradesh state.

After being gang raped, they were hanged from a mango tree, police said.

Villagers streamed into the homes of the girls' relatives, weeping behind their customary veils.

The father of one of two girls who was raped demanded that those arrested over the attacks be hanged amid mounting uproar over the crime.

The father said he has refused compensation from the government of Uttar Pradesh state whom he blamed for failing to stop the attacks last Tuesday evening.

The father, who cannot be named, said he only wanted justice for the men who attacked his daughter and niece, aged 14 and 12, who were found hanging from a tree the following morning.

He made the comments after a string of politicians descended on the dirt-poor village in Budaun district of Uttar Pradesh in the wake of the attacks, which federal police have been ordered to investigate.

"We have only made one demand from each politician who has visited us in the last two days: we want justice," he said.

"We want the same treatment to the accused that they gave to our daughters - they should be hung from a tree."

Three men face preliminary murder and gang-rape charges while two policemen face accusations of being criminal accessories, other police officials told media.

The families of the victims have said police could have saved the girls, but claimed officers initially refused to help when they found out they were from a lower caste. Some of the accused are from a higher caste.

"The Yadav government had offered us 500,000 rupees (S$10,595).. we won't take it, it is the administration that could have saved my daughters and didn't," the father said on Sunday.

Rights groups and political opponents have accused the government in Uttar Pradesh, headed by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, of failing to tackle crimes against women.

India revised its laws on sex attacks in the wake of the December 2012 gang - rape of a student on a bus in Delhi which triggered outrage, but they have done little to stem the tide of sex attacks.

Mayawati, a former chief minister of the state who is regarded as the political champion of India's lower castes, became the latest high-profile figure to visit the village on Sunday.

As outrage grew over violence against Indian women and girls, police reported a separate attack in the same state - in which a teenage girl was doused with kerosene and set alight after her father became involved in a property dispute.