Protesters outside office of chief minister of Uttar Pradesh demand end to violence against women

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Indian police have fired water cannon at a mainly female group protesting against the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in the country's largest state.

Several hundred protesters outside the office of the chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh in Lucknow were demanding an end to violence against women when riot police tried to disperse the crowd by blasting them with water, Indian television footage showed. The protests came after last week's killings in Uttar Pradesh, with the UN saying violence against women should be regarded as a human rights issue.

"There should be justice for the families of the two teenage girls and for all the women and girls from lower-caste communities who are targeted and raped in rural India," said Lise Grande, the UN's resident coordinator for India.

"Violence against women is not a women's issue, it's a human rights issue," Grande added in a statement.

India introduced tougher rape laws last year after the gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi but they have failed to stem the tide of attacks across the country.

Police fire water cannon at protesters after the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in Uttar Pradesh. Photograph: AP

There was widespread outrage when the initial protests over the Delhi gang-rape were broken up using water cannon, but police resorted to similar methods on Monday in Lucknow.

"We're not going to sleep, we'll be here, they have to stop this," a protester told the NDTV network during the demonstration in the city before the crowd was drenched by police.

The two girls, aged 14 and 12, had apparently gone into fields on Tuesday night to relieve themselves because their home, like most in the state's Budaun district, did not have toilets.

Villagers refused to allow the bodies of the girls to be cut down from a mango tree for hours after they were discovered on Wednesday morning in protest at police inaction.

Police have arrested five people, most of them from higher castes, in connection with the attacks on the girls and a federal police investigation has been ordered.