Pakistani woman raped, killed and hanged from tree: police

MULTAN Pakistan (Reuters) - A 20-year-old woman has been gang-raped, killed and hanged from a tree in Pakistan in a case with a chilling resemblance to a double rape and murder that caused outrage in neighbouring India last month.

Pakistani police said Muzammil Bibi, 20, was attacked by three men in a field in the impoverished Layyah area of densely populated Punjab province.

"This is the first time in my 22 years of service in the police that I have seen such a case, where a girl was raped in this way and found hanging from a tree," senior officer Sadaqat Ali Chohan told Reuters.

"We have heard of such cases in India but never in Pakistan. The girl's clothes were torn. We took her down and moved her to hospital. Her body had signs of resistance. We have arrested three individuals who have confessed to the crime."

According to police, she resisted the rape and attackers strangled her.

Police said her parents spent all night looking for her and found her body hanging the next morning.

Two teenage cousins were found hanging from a tree after being raped in the north of India in May, in the latest of a series of attacks which have triggered nationwide debate on violence against women.