Dalits brutally raped and murdered in India's Uttar Pradesh...

A spate of exceptionally brutal rapes in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has shocked India. Many of the victims were young girls. The BBC's Geeta Pandey reports from Lucknow.

For Sarika, 16, it was like any other day when she went out to the fields for her evening ablutions with her friend Chhaya.

It was a cold February evening and it was pitch dark. "I was feeling a little scared so I wanted to get back quickly," she tells me.

(...)

SR Darapuri, vice-president of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Uttar Pradesh, says most of the rape victims are poor women and girls in remote villages. Many, he says, are low-caste Dalits (formerly known as "untouchables").

"I analysed the rape figures for 2007 and I found that 90% of victims were Dalits and 85% of Dalit rape victims were underage girls," he says. Full story...

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