India is shocked by second rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl as victim is abused and killed at a wedding just days after gang-rape at Hindu temple

Eight-year-old girl was attending a wedding in Kathua, Uttar Pradesh, India

Local man, aged 18, lured her away from the festivities and raped her

The killer was found asleep next to the dead girl's body close to the wedding

Comes days after another eight-year-old was gang-raped and murdered

An eight-year-old girl has been found raped and murdered after being kidnapped from a wedding by a teenager in Etah, in India's Uttar Pradesh state.

The child had been attending the festivities with her parents, when 18-year-old Sonu Jatav lured her away to a nearby building, where he sexually abused her and strangled her, police said.

The horrific crime has further shaken India, which is still reeling from the shocking gang-rape and murder of another eight-year-old who was kidnapped and brutalised in a temple.

Shocking: Relatives of the eight-year-old girl who was kidnapped from a wedding, raped and murdered, mourn over the body, draped in a white sheet, as police officers watch on

Jatav had been hired to help out at the wedding and is thought to have been familiar to the girl as they were from the same village.

He allegedly lured her away from the party at around 1.30am, and took her to an under-construction building nearby.

Her parents and others in the wedding party started looking for the girl shortly after and soon found Jatav, drunk and asleep, next to the child's body, NDTV reports. 'The body of the girl was found in an under-construction house in the vicinity of the marriage venue.,' Superintendent of Police Akhilesh Chaurasia told FreePress Journal.

'A rope was found tied around the neck of the girl.' 

Local television channels showed the girl's relatives crying as her dead body was carried from the scene, covered in a 

A lawyer has been threatened with rape and death for fighting for justice for Asifa Bano - an eight-year-old Muslim girl who was raped and murdered in India 

One of the eight on trial for Asifa's brutal rape and murder is temple custodian Sanji Ram, pictured arriving in court yesterday, who is accused of  inciting his nephew to abduct the child

One of the eight men on trial for the brutal gang rape and murder is Deepak Khajuria, pictured outside court  on Monday, a special police officer

 One of the men accused of involvement in the case is escorted by police at the District and Sessions court in Kathua on Monday

The incident took place just days after the mutilated body of rape victim Asifa Bano  was found in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir state.

Little Asifa was kidnapped by a Hindu gang trying to drive the Muslim nomadic herders -  to which she belonged - away from Jammu and Kashmir.

Police say the gang took her to a Hindu temple, where they kept her for three days, subjecting her to repeated sexual abuse, before killing her.

Teenage rape victim claims her attackers bribed her parents

A 16-year-old girl in Delhi has claimed her parents tried to force her to take back her statement accusing two men of raping her.

The teenager alleges that she was kidnapped in August last year, and held captive by two men for a week while they raped her.

According to the teen, the families of the two accused have paid her parents 5,000 rupees (£53) in exchange for her taking back her statement. 

She says that when she refused to change her story, her parents beat her, NDTV reports.

Her mother has been arrested and police are searching for her parents. 

Eight men, including four police officers and a Hindu temple custodian, appeared in court yesterday, pleading not guilty to rape and murder.  

The temple custodian, retired public servant Sanji Ram, is accused of conspiring with four police officers, a friend, his son and a juvenile nephew to kill the girl and destroy crucial evidence. 

Disgust over the horrific crime led to protests in cities across India over the past few days, with anger fuelled by support for the accused initially shown by ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

The protests have also focused on another rape incident allegedly involving a BJP lawmaker in the crime-ridden, most populous, poor northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

More rallies demanding action against rapists and violence against women were expected on Monday in the capital and Ahmedabad, the state capital of Modi's home state of Gujarat.

The national outrage over the Kathua case has drawn parallels with the massive protests that followed the gang rape and murder of a girl on a Delhi bus in 2012, which forced the then Congress-led government to enact tough new rape laws including the death penalty.

Activsits have staged various protests to bring attention to rape cases and violence against women in India in recent days

Kashmiri lawyers hold placards during a protest calling for justice over the horrifying rape

But activists say crimes of violence against women are often inadequately investigated, and in some cases accused with political connections have been protected.

More incidents of child rape, including one in Surat in Gujurat, were reported over the weekend.

On Friday, Modi assured the country that the guilty would not be shielded, but he has been criticised for failing to speak out sooner.

Before leaving for an official visit to Europe this week, Modi received a letter from 50 former civil servants upbraiding the country's political leadership over its weak response.

'The bestiality and the barbarity involved in the rape and murder of an eight year old child shows the depths of depravity that we have sunk into,' the letter said.

'In post-Independence India, this is our darkest hour and we find the response of our government, the leaders of our political parties inadequate and feeble.'white sheet.

One of the men involved ordered another attacker to delay her murder so he could rape her one last time, police say.