Three sisters were killed "and the police did nothing for two days," in the town of Murmadi, the the Bhandara district in the Maharashtra state, which is more than 630 miles south of India's capital New Dehli.
"Three sisters ages 6, 9 and 11 were raped, murdered and their bodies thrown into a well last week in the western Indian state of Maharastra, a senior police officer," reported La Prensa.
According to a police report, the three young girls disappeared after leaving school. The well in which the three sisters were found, two days later, was a third of a mile, from their house. Police officer Arti Singh said that indications were that, "the three (girls) were raped before being murdered."
The grandfather of the three girls said they lost their father four years ago and were living in extreme poverty with their mother.
"The girls were lured with food by unknown abductors," said the victims' grandfather.
India's police initially said that the rape and killing of the three young girls was "an accident" and it was not until the mother of the three girls began to protest, that the case was taken seriously by officials. Only after the mother and the other villagers blocked off the national highway, forced shops to close, and burned tires on Wednesday, the police then began their manhunt.
"'The police did not take the case seriously and did nothing for two days," the CNN-IBN television news, and reported by the Associated Press.
After the mother's and the villagers' protest about the police's failure to search for the three sisters' killers, one police officer was suspended "for not acting promptly," according to Indian Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, who represents Bhandara district in India's Parliament.
"It is unacceptable. All of us have to hang our heads in shame," Minister Patel said.
The central government has now involved state investigators in the case and has asked to be informed about any new developments in the rape and killing of the three young sisters.
India recently has dealt with another rape case; on December 16, a 23-year-old was gang-raped, and later killed. Thousands of protesters gathered in Delhi to protest against what they saw as lax Indian laws and the government's handling of it.
