Indian minister calls Uttar Pradesh rape-murder case "terrible"

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.