Indian Rape Girl, 5, Dies After Long Coma

A five-year-old girl who was abducted and raped in India has died almost two weeks after the attack.

The girl suffered a cardiac arrest and died late on Monday at a hospital in Nagpur city, where she was being treated for injuries following the assault on April 18.

According to Bharat Yadav, the official collector for Seoni district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh where the rape occurred, two men have been arrested.

One allegedly lured her to a farm where the other - who was a friend of her parents - raped her, Mr Bharat said.

The parents, poor construction workers, were at work when the attack occurred, he added.

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 since April 20.

India has recently seen a sharp rise in the numbers of rapes and sexual crimes against women and children.

Officials have said the spike has resulted from more people reporting the crimes.

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 allegedly 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.

The attacks on the young girls come four months after the fatal gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus sparked outrage across India about the treatment of women in the country.

The December attack spurred the government to pass tough laws for crimes against women, including the death penalty for repeat offenders or for rape attacks that lead to the victim's death.

India has struggled to eradicate the problem, amid a long history of groups of men pestering females in a behaviour known as "Eve baiting".