Teenage boy was shot at close range by four masked intruders who attempted to sexually assault his two elder sisters

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A 19-year-old youth was shot dead in eastern India after he intervened to stop four assailants from raping his two sisters, the Indian Express reported on Monday.

Ganesh Murumu was shot at close range in the early hours of Sunday morning in the Indian state of West Bengal after he protested when four masked men broke into the family home and attempted to sexually assault his two elder sisters.

"The four had covered their faces. They attacked both of us. My brother kept pleading to them to let us go but they didn't pay any heed to him. Then one of them suddenly took out a gun and fired at Ganesh," one of the sisters was quoted as saying.

No arrests have been made so far, according to the report.

Statistics showed that 244,270 crimes against women were reported to Indian police in 2012, up from 228,650 in 2011, according to the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB).

These crimes include rapes, kidnappings, sexual harassment, trafficking, molestation and cruelty by husbands and relatives. They also include crimes in which a woman was driven to suicide as a result of demands for a dowry from her husband or in-laws.

West Bengal, bordering Bangladesh, recorded the highest number of gender crimes at 30,942 – 12.7 percent of India's total recorded crimes against women, said the NCRB.

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