After three sisters, aged 6, 9 and 11 were found dead at the bottom of a well in Western India following an alleged rape, the girls' mother called for those responsible to be caught and publicly hanged.
The girls were found in the well in Bhandara district in Maharashtra state on Saturday, police told CNN.
They were reported missing two days earlier, according to A.R. Tiwari, a local police inspector.
This incident came shortly after five men and a juvenile were accused of gang-raping and murdering a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi in December, CNN reported. The five men are currently on trial.
Preliminary medical reports suggest that the girls drowned, and that they were sexually assaulted, Tiwari told CNN.
Four people are being questioned in connection with the assault, district police chief Arti Singh said to CNN, but no one has yet been arrested.
A local police officer in charge of the area where the incident happened has been suspended and replaced by Tiwari, Singh added.
Initially, police said the girls were killed in an accident, but thousands of people from Murmadi, Lakhani and nearby villages blocked the National Highway 6 for over six hours, insisting that the three sisters' death was a murder and that swift action should be taken, The Hindu reported.
The girls lost their father five years ago, and were brought up by their mother and grandparents, according to The Hindu.
The victims' mother told CNN affiliate IBN on Thursday that the victims' mother said police were too slow in responding to the girls' disappearance.
"Had the police searched for the girls in the neighboring areas, then they would have been found," said the woman, whose identity was withheld in accordance with Indian laws protecting the victims and families in sexual assault cases.
But police, according to CNN, denied her allegations. "We acted promptly," Tiwari said. "Wireless messages were issued the same day and police teams fanned out to find the girls."
Still, the mother insists that police catch and punish the culprits quickly.
"I appeal to the government to capture the culprits and hang them in public," she told CNN.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
