Indian police on Saturday arrested five people, including two policemen, over the alleged gang-rape and murder of two teenage cousins.
"The three suspects, detained for the attack in Uttar Pradesh state, are cousins in their 20s from an extended family," Police Officer N Malik said, Reuters reported.
"They face charges of rape and murder, crimes punishable by the death penalty," Malik added.
Officials in Uttar Pradesh, which has a reputation for lawlessness, also arrested two police officers and sacked two others on Friday for failing to investigate reports of the girls' disappearance earlier in the week.
News of the gang-rape was accompanied by TV footage of the corpses of the teenage girls swaying as they hung from a mango tree, causing outrage across the nation.