A court in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has sentenced two men to life in prison for raping and murdering two Dalit sisters last year.

Two other convicts were found guilty of destroying evidence and were sent to jail for six years each. The convicts are likely to appeal in the high court.

The teenaged girls were found hanging from a tree in Lakhimpur district in September.

The gruesome crime had made headlines and sparked global outrage.

Police had arrested six people – four of them were convicted on Friday while judgements against two minors are pending.

On Friday, a special court that deals with cases of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) convicted two of the four adults of kidnapping, gangraping and murdering the girls.

On Monday, Judge Rahul Singh described the crime as “rarest of the rare” and said that the two convicts’ life sentences would “run until their last breath”. They have also been ordered to pay 41,000 rupees ($500; £390) each as fine.

The bodies of the two sisters – aged 17 and 15 – were found hanging on 14 September near their home in Tamoli Purva village, just over 200km (124 miles) from the state capital, Lucknow.

Less than 24 hours after the crime, police had arrested all the six suspects.

Police said the girls had been friends with some of the accused and had “willingly gone” with them on their bike. They said the accused raped and strangled the girls as they were putting pressure on them to get married and later, hanged them from a tree with the help of their associates.

But the girls’ family had questioned the investigation and alleged that the sisters had been kidnapped by the accused from outside their home.

The police claim was also contested by families of the accused who said their sons were innocent.

On Friday, after the court convicted four of the adult accused, prosecution lawyer Brajesh Kumar Pandey told the media that the judgement against the two minor accused would come at a later date.

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