Two girls found hanged in India - PHOTO

Young cousins, Murti and Pushpa, aged 14 and 15, were found dead in the village of Katra in northern Uttar Pradesh state in May this year.Their killings provoked national outrage after it emerged that police in the village initially refused to investigate the deaths due to the girls' low-caste status.But today police in India said that they believe the older girl had a relationship with one of the suspects which she hid from her family.They say that on the night they died, the younger girl had called her cousin's boyfriend and suggested they go to a local fair.Later, the older girl and her boyfriend were caught by one of her relatives as they were about to have sex in a nearby field, a police spokeswoman said.The girls then apparently committed suicide because they were afraid of the reaction of their families and the stigma attached to what they had done, she added.Kanchan Prasad, from the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's version of the FBI, said: 'There were no marks of violence or injuries on the bodies of the two girls, except for the ligature marks on their necks.'Also, nobody heard any cries for help though there were houses around the spot where the bodies were found hanging.' Meanwhile, Ranjut Sinha, the head of the Central Bureau of Invetigation, India's version of the FBI, told the Hindustan Times that the local police's probe into the deaths was conducted 'erroneously',He told the newspaper: 'Yes, we have cracked the Badaun case. Our probe found that the two girls had committed suicide and weren't murdered.'A forensic report also concluded that there was no evidence of rape or sexual assault and a lie detector test on the main witness showed he was lying about seeing five suspect dragging the girls.Pictures showing the girls' bodies hanging from a mango tree in the small village shocked the country and sparked widespread protests.It came after it was reported they were gang-raped and murdered after going into the fields to relieve themselves.Their families had said they had gone to the fields because their homes, like most in their village in Baduan district, do not have toilets.Even before today's reports surfaced, regional police had cast doubt on whether the girls had been sexually assaulted.Bakudaily.Az