Days after the bodies of two Dalit girls, aged 15 and 18, were found hanging from a tree in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh, police have filed charges against two local youths from the village. While the police are treating the deaths as suicides, the families of the victims disagree. On Thursday evening, one girl’s father filed a formal complaint. Hours later, police booked two youths on charges of abetment to suicide.

“We are sure that things will become clear by tomorrow,” Alok Priyadarshi, Superintendent of Police, Farrukhabad, told The Indian Express.

The girls were found hanging from different ends of a single dupatta on the night of August 26-27. “Yeh hatya hai (this was murder),” said the father of the younger girl.

The elder girl’s mother also said, “Atmahatya toh nahi hai (this isn’t suicide).”

According to him, the girls went to a Janmashtami celebration around 9 pm. When they didn’t return, the families looked for them in the night. Then their bodies were found the next morning.

The mother said, “There was never a fight at home, nor were they scolded. Why would two happy girls, going to a celebration, suddenly hang themselves?”

When asked why the family did not file an FIR earlier, her father said they were busy with the last rites. Also, there was confusion over the post-mortem report. The girl’s father, said, “Police have informed us about conversation records between the girls and two boys from the neighbourhood, including that night. We never knew about it.”

The girls used their parents’ phones as they did not have any. The police said they found a cell phone near the scene and a SIM card from one of the girls’ clothes.

“They are saying that these girls died by suicide and hung themselves, but what about wounds on their bodies? They did not allow us to see the body. We saw the body only this morning. Police is asking us to cremate her as soon as possible. We are not demanding anything, we just want to know the truth,” the father said.