Priest, three other men charged in rape and murder of 9-year-old girl then angry mob shows

A 9-year-old girl was gang-raped, murdered and thrown on a funeral pyre in India — with a priest and three crematorium workers charged with the crime that has sparked four days of angry protests and calls for the death penalty, according to local reports.

The unidentified girl from an impoverished, low-caste family went missing Sunday night while fetching water from a well at the crematorium in Purani Nangal village on the outskirts of Delhi, her mother told the Hindustan Times.

The mom said that when she went to find her daughter, she was met by priest Radhe Shyam, a 55-year-old family friend, who told her that the girl had been electrocuted and died.

Shyam took her to see her daughter’s body stretched out on a bench at the crematorium, where three other men were waiting, she said.

“Her eyes were closed, her lips were blackish, her nose was bleeding and water was oozing out of her mouth,” the mom told the paper, noting there was “no mud or dirt on her clothes.”

The group also fetched the girl’s father — then locked the pair inside the crematorium as they lit a funeral pyre despite the parents’ objections, the mom claimed.

“They said if we called the police, they would steal her organs,” the mom told the outlet.

“But I couldn’t keep quiet, so the moment I got back, I screamed at the top of my lungs … my girl was gone,” said the mother.

The angry mob then turned on the suspects, one of whom “confessed and then blamed Radhe Shyam for planning everything,” Kumar said.

The beating was so bad, the four men — identified by the Hindustan Times as the priest along with Kuldeep Kumar, 63, Laxmi Narayan, 48, and Mohammad Salim, 49 — had to be rescued by police, the paper said.

NY Post