Suspects 'confess' to gang-rape and hanging India teenage girls

Three detained suspects have confessed to the gang-rape and slaying of two teenage cousins who were found hanging from a tree in northern India last week, according to local police.

The killing of the 14 and 15-year-old girls in Uttar Pradesh state caused outrage across India, with angry demonstrators taking to the streets.

Officer Atul Saxena said today that police were preparing identity sketches of two missing suspects based on descriptions provided by the arrested men.

Authorities also arrested two police officers for failing to investigate when the father of one of the teenagers reported them missing.

Angry protesters took to the streets of Alahabad in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where two teenage girls were found hanged after being gang-raped.

Authorities in Uttar Pradesh, which has a long-standing reputation for lawlessness, are facing growing criticism.

Read: Indian official visits site where gang-raped girls found hanged

A senior Indian official has called for federal police to investigate the gang-rape and hanging of two teenage girls.

Vice president of India's Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi, visited the site where the teenager's were found hanged.

Gandhi said: "The honour of women is invaluable - there is a need for justice.

"In the end the people who were involved in this should know that in India this will not be tolerated."

Vice president of India's Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi, will visit Badaun in Uttar Pradesh to meet the family members of two teenage girls who were gang-raped and hanged.

The incident has evoked an outrage and two constables were arrested on Friday evening. The Uttar Pradesh government has promised to set up a fast track court to punish the culprits.

Local police have told ITV News that a fifth man has been arrested over the gang-rape of two young girls in northern India.

Sohal Lal said his daughter and niece - aged 12 and 14 - were abducted at night by a gang armed with guns who threatened a cousin as he tried to intervene and save them.

Read: Police 'could have saved' gang-raped and hanged girls

The mango tree where two teenage cousins in India were found hanging after being raped by their attackers, police said, has been surrounded by local people protesting in silence about alleged police inaction in the case.

Read: Three arrests in India after teenage sisters found dead

The girls' bodies were found hanging from the tree on Wednesday morning, hours after they disappeared from fields near their home in Katra village in Uttar Pradesh, police chief Atul Saxena.

The girls had gone to the fields to use the toilet as they had no toilet in their home.

Indian TV footage showed the villagers sitting under the girls bodies' as they swung in the wind, preventing police from taking them down until more suspects were arrested.

Three men, including two police officers, have been arrested in northern India on suspicion of the gang-rape and murder of two teenage cousins.

The victims were found hanging from a mango tree after disappearing from near their home in the village of Katra in Uttar Pradesh state, according to police Superintendent Atul Saxena.

He added that an autopsy had confirmed they had been raped and strangled before they were hung.

Villagers reacted angrily, with local television showing locals sitting under the tree, preventing the authorities from removing the bodies until the suspects were arrested.

The police say they are still searching for another four suspects in addition to the three men already under arrest.