Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
Police in central India are investigating the third brutal rape of a teenage girl within a week after the 16-year-old was reportedly set on fire in her own home after threatening to report her attacker. She later died in a local hospital in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Authorities have arrested a 28-year-old suspect who was allegedly tipped off to the girl being home alone by her own cousin. The girl’s cousin has also been arrested, police said. The attack, which reportedly occurred late Thursday, comes after two other unrelated rapes in the eastern Indian state of Jarkhand, where a 16-year-old girl was burned to death and a 17-year-old girl left in critical condition following sexual assaults. Under pressure amid public outrage following a spate of such attacks, India’s Cabinet last month approved harsher penalties for those convicted of raping minors, including the death penalty for sexual assault of those under the age of 12.