While one of the eight men allegedly involved in the incident was arrested by the police the next day, seven others surrendered in court yesterday. None of them have confessed to the crime. No official statements have been recorded yet.

``All the men have said they will only give their statements in court, in the presence of their lawyer,'' says Baleshwar Singh, station officer at the Raya police station, where the FIR has been lodged.

Villagers say this is the ``worst act of brutality in the state since the Phoolan Devi incident''. This time, the two sisters and their mother-in-law were paying the price for an elopement.

Vinod, who was visiting his sisters at Haria Ki Garhi, had come down from hisvillage Karba. On October 30 he is said to have run away with Kamlesh Parmar, the neighbour's daughter. As villagers discussed the elopement, the Parmar family alleged Vinod had abducted their daughter and decided to punish his family.

``At the crack of dawn, three men barged into the house and dragged us into their home,'' says Vinod's elder sister. ``Our husbands had gone out looking for the missing girl and our brother. What followed was two hours of humiliation, which they now want us to forget for some money.''

Mukta, Kanhaiya, Birjo, Saudan Singh, Om Vir, Bahadur, Rajpal, Braj Veer and Netrapal -- the eight accused -- allegedly raped and beat the women even as their own wives and relatives sat in the courtyard. Snatching the gold jewellery from the victims, they bundled up their clothes and burnt them in the courtyard. And then they forced them to walk down the village lane, naked.

``They beat us constantly as the village watched,'' says the elder sister, ``Our mother-in-law even went up to a fewdoors begging for shelter, but all doors were banged on her face. The men only let up when they heard that the police were on their way.''

Anticipating trouble in this Jat-dominated village about 25 km from Mathura, the 45th battalion of the Police Armed Constabulary is on round-the-clock duty. So are the local police. Despite their presence, not one villager has volunteered to give his or her statement. The Parmar family has disappeared, and the house where the rapes took place is in shambles. In fact, it was only after the police took possession of movable property in the house that the men surrendered.

A few kilometres away in Karba village, Vinod's family is in shock. ``For our son's fault, our son should have been punished, why our daughters?'' asks their mother Draupadi.

According to villagers at Karba, Vinod was reprimanded by his family. ``We beat him and told him to take the girl back to her village,'' says the father, Bartan Singh. According to them, the father and family friend Virender wereescorting Vinod and Kamlesh back to Haria Ki Garhi when the two ran away. They add that Kamlesh insisted on staying with Vinod and in fact, her aunt had given the two some money.

``We had a flat tyre midway and the two ran away into the field,'' recalls Virender. ``We searched for them and on October 31, the two were back in Karba. When the girl's relatives came, we categorically told them that they could shoot both the boy and the girl in the chaupal.''

However, according to villagers of Karba, Kamlesh's relatives insisted on taking Vinod to Haria Ki Garhi, which was not permitted. While this discussion was going on in the Karba village square, the rapes in Haria Ki Garhi had already taken place. At 5 pm, Kamlesh registered a complaint in the Raya police station saying she had been abducted and raped by Vinod. While the police claim that they arrested Vinod on November 1, villagers at Karba say that the boy was handed over to the police by his parents on October 31.

``The entire village told us to killVinod and Kamlesh,'' says Draupadi. ``We should have because now my daughters are suffering for no fault of theirs. If it was revenge they wanted, they should have just killed us all.''