Suspected Rape and Killing of Girl, 9, Triggers Protests in India

NEW DELHI - Angry villagers in the Indian capital held a protest Thursday outside a crematorium where they say a 9-year-old girl was raped and killed earlier this week.

The protesters, sitting on a makeshift stage, held placards demanding justice for the girl, who lived nearby. The case has revived outrage over the number of gruesome sexual crimes against women in India as well the treatment of those on the lowest rung of the country’s rigid caste system, from which the girl hailed. Four men suspected in the crime, all of them workers at the crematorium, have been arrested but have yet to be charged, said police officer Ingit Pratap Singh. Police said the girl told her mother on Sunday that she was going to get water at a tap at the crematorium in southwest New Delhi. About 30 minutes later, police said, the crematorium’s priest called the mother, who was told that her daughter had been electrocuted.