Three minor girls raped, murdered and dumped in a well in Bhandara

What happened

Three sisters, aged 11, 9, and 6, went missing from their school in Murmadi village, Bhandara district, Maharashtra, on February 14, 2013, after classes ended. Two days later, their bodies were found in a well near the village. A post-mortem confirmed they had been sexually assaulted before being killed.

The girls came from a family in abject poverty. Their father had died years earlier; their mother works as a daily-wage laborer. Their grandfather said the girls had been lured away by strangers who promised them food.

The police failure

What turned grief into outrage was the police response. Officers initially dismissed the deaths as accidental, and villagers said the investigation only began in earnest after they took to the streets — blocking National Highway 6 for hours, burning tires, and forcing shops to close — demanding justice. The Lakhni police station chief, Prakash Munde, was suspended for not acting promptly.

"The incident is extremely deplorable and painful," Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said in a statement, appealing for calm and cooperation with law enforcement. Police formed 12 special teams to investigate and began questioning suspects.

The political response

Union Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, who represents Bhandara in Parliament, visited the girls' mother at her home. "As a father of three daughters, I am appalled at the atrocity committed on these girls," he said, adding that he had raised the matter with the chief minister to ensure financial assistance for the widowed mother, a speedy investigation, and a fast-track trial. The National Commission for Women took suo motu cognizance of the case and constituted an inquiry committee.

The larger context

The murders came just two months after the December 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi — a case that had already brought a global spotlight onto violence against women in India. The Bhandara case hardened the sense that the problem ran from the capital's streets to the country's poorest villages, and that official indifference was part of it. As Patel put it: "It is unacceptable. All of us have to hang our heads in shame."

Archive summary, February 2013, of the Bhandara case as originally reported by NDTV and the international press. (NDTV's original URL no longer resolves.)