A police car on the street in Chennai, India
Police in Muzaffarnagar say the four men threatened to shoot the girls if they raised the alarm (Picture: iStockphoto)

Two teenage sisters were raped by four men at gunpoint while out searching for their mother in a sugarcane field, according to police.

The girls, aged 13 and 15, were allegedly set upon in the Kaserwa village near India’s north eastern city of Muzaffarnagar on Tuesday evening.

Their attackers were said to have threatened to shoot them if they cried for help or told anyone about what happened.

Four men have been arrested and charged, Superintendent of Police (Rural) Alok Sharma said.

The attack follows a spate of recent rapes on minors in the Uttar Pradesh region in recent weeks across Aligarh, Kushinagar, Hamirpur, Kanpur, and Meerut.

Indian police standing with holding walkie talkie
Police have been asked to step up foot patrols in rural regions following a spate of similar attacks (Picture: iStockphoto)

They prompted chief minister Yogi Adityanath to ask police to step up foot patrols in rural regions in an effort to curb further assaults.

Two boys, aged 15 and 16, were arrested earlier this week in Madhya Pradesh after an eight-year-old girl was attacked in the Singrauli district after stepping out of her home to bathe in the village canal.

She was dragged off to a quiet spot where the boys took turns raping her before fleeing, leaving the bloodied youngster to stagger home in agony.

In another shocking attack, a five-year-old girl was abducted, raped and murdered by a 19-year-old man who dumped her body in the Kshipra river.

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