国际英语新闻:Indian minister calls Uttar Pradesh rape-murder case "terrible"

NEW DELHI, June 2 (Xinhua) -- India's Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday described the rape and murder of two minor girls in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh's Badaun as a "terrible" crime.

Menaka Gandhi, who is widow of Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, told the media "It is a terrible case and symptomatic of what is happening in the country. "

"Men commit rape and molestation as they can get away with it," said Gandhi who, contrary to her sister-in-law and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, is a member of the Bharatiya Janata party.

The two victims, aged 14 and 15 years, were abducted, gang raped and murdered on May 27 when they went to relieve themselves in a field at a village in the district of Badaun in Uttar Pradesh. Their bodies were later found hanging from a tree the next day.