A court in India has sentenced five men to death for the gang-rape and murder of a teenage girl, as well as the murders of her father and infant niece.

The crime was committed in January 2021 when the men offered the girl and her family – all members of a neglected tribal community in the central state of Chhattisgarh – a ride on their motorbikes while they waited for public transport.

They later beat the teenager’s father to death while trying to stop the rape and killed her three-year-old niece, public prosecutor Sunil Kumar Mishra told AFP.

The last victim was found unconscious by locals a few days later and died on the way to the hospital.

The five men were found guilty of rape and triple murder “and sentenced to death,” Mishra said on Thursday, a day after the court announced the sentence.

The sixth man “was found guilty of conspiracy, but his involvement in the rape was not proven, so he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders,” he added.

India imposes the death penalty, although it is rarely carried out in practice.

An average of nearly 90 rapes per day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people, but activists say many more go unreported.

Court in the eastern city of Kolkata sentenced the man to life imprisonment this week after being found guilty of raping and murdering a 31-year-old doctor last year. The doctor’s family burst into tears, saying they were “shocked” by the sentence and had hoped her killer would be hanged.

The discovery of her bloodied body at a state hospital in August caused a stir nationwide anger and protests on the chronic problem of violence against women.

The gruesome nature of the attack has drawn comparisons with 2012 gang rape and murder young women on a bus in Delhi, which also sparked weeks of protests across the country. Four men were sentenced for the attack on the bus performed in March 2020.

Last week, more than four dozen men were arrested for repeated sexual abuse of teenagerswho said she was assaulted by about 60 men in the southern state of Kerala over several years.

The men accused of the attacks include the girl’s childhood friend, along with neighbors and family friends, police told affiliate network CBS News. BBC News. Among the accused are at least five students from her college and former colleagues from her school, according to the Indian newspaper The News Minute.

The alleged abuse came to light last month when a team of counselors working under a government program visited her home.