A five-year-old girl has died after a rape attack in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
In the latest of a series of brutal attacks, the girl suffered cardiac arrest and died at a hospital in Nagpur city in neighbouring Maharashtra state.
Two men have been arrested in connection with the attack.
It is believed the girl was lured by one man to a farm, where she was then raped by the other man. The parents, poor construction workers, were at work when the attack occurred.
Ravi Manadiar, an administrator at the hospital, said the girl suffered a brain injury when the men tried to smother her cries and had been in a coma from April 20 until she died last night.
In Nagpur, the mother of the girl was inconsolable. Weeping, she said: "These men should be burned alive so that the whole world will see how such criminals ought to be punished."
About 40 supporters of the opposition Congress party held a rally in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, to protest at what they said was a rise in violence against women in the state.
Earlier this month, another five-year-old girl was kidnapped, raped and tortured by two men who then abandoned her in a locked room in New Delhi. She is still recovering at a hospital in the city.
Police refused to register a case when the girl's parents reported that their daughter was missing. Hundreds of people protested outside police headquarters in New Delhi for three days, angry over allegations of police inaction and indifference to the parents' complaints.
Indian media have begun to report sexual assaults more aggressively since the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December.
That attack triggered outrage across India about the treatment of women in the country, and spurred the government to pass tougher laws for crimes against women, including the death penalty for repeat offenders or for rapes that lead to the victim's death.
