NEW DELHI (TheBlaze/AP) — Barbaric attacks on women have been making headlines of late in India. Police say investigators are now searching villages in western India for suspects in the rape and killing of three young sisters — the latest crime to rock the nation.

The killing of the girls aged 7, 9 and 11 last week has horrified Indians still angry over the gang rape and killing of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December. The youngest girl had earlier been erroneously identified by Indian news reports as a 5-year-old.

Rape and Murder of 3 Young Girls Shocks India

Indian people listen to a speaker, unseen, while they participate in a protest against a new sexual violence law as the parliament convenes in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. Activists say the law is inadequate and it only partially followed the recommendations of a government panel set up after the fatal gang rape of a woman in New Delhi led to nation-wide protests. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The girls’ bodies were found on Feb. 14 in a village well in Bhandara district in Maharashtra after they had gone missing from school.

The victims’ mother said police did not take the case seriously and did nothing for several days until villagers held protests. They burned tires, forced store closures and blocked a national highway in an effort to get authorities’ attention.

“The police did not take the case seriously and did nothing for two days,” the mother, who is currently unnamed, said, according to CNN-IBN television.

Now, that situation has purportedly changed, with police officer Abhinav Deshmukh saying Friday that 30 investigators are now working on the case.

As stated, this horrific case follows the story of the student who was brutally raped and killed on a bus late last year. The woman and a male friend were traveling in a public bus in the Indian capital, New Delhi, after watching a film on the evening of Dec. 16 when they were attacked by six men who raped her. They also beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into her body resulting in severe organ damage. Both of them were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

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