Rohtak: A mentally challenged woman was gang-raped and violated with sticks and stones before being killed last week in Rohtak town, 80 km from Delhi.

Five days after her naked, half eaten body was found in a field near the highway, the police claim they have arrested eight men who attacked her.

The 28-year-old woman’s body was found on February 4, gnawed at by animals and with key organs missing; two arms and the left side of the body was gone. The police said objects had been inserted into her; sticks, stones and condoms were stuffed into her private parts.

The savage attack has spurred comparisons to the 2012 gang-rape and torture of a young medical student in a moving bus, which led to a massive public outcry and tougher laws to deter rapists.

“I have never seen such a horrific case in 30 years. The injuries suggest she was hit on the head with a heavy object, became partly unconscious and was then gang-raped. Stones were inserted in her before she was dumped,” said SK Dattarwal, who headed the post mortem examination.

The mutilated body was found three days after the woman was reported missing by her sister.

“The police did not take my complaint seriously. They said you keep looking for her…you will find her or maybe she will return. If they had acted promptly, she would have been alive,” the sister said, adding, “We want the killers to be hanged.”

As they confronted public fury, the police prayed for luck in hunting down the attackers.

“We are not lacking in manpower or vehicles. We are only short of luck. If luck is with us, then we will solve the case,” said Chandigarh police chief Yashpal Singal, who is in Rohtak to oversee the investigations.

The woman had come from Nepal a few months ago and was staying with her sister while being treated at a hospital. The police say one of the arrested men is a Nepali national.

In 2012, the fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi led to a massive public outcry and tougher laws to deter rapists.

Earlier reports: