Indian girls aged two and five 'gang-raped' in New Delhi

A toddler and a five-year-old girl were raped in separate attacks in New Delhi overnight with at least one gang-raped, police said Saturday, as activists warned of an "epidemic" of sexual violence in the capital.

The two-and-a-half-year-old girl was abducted from a religious event in west Delhi by two men on Friday night and raped before being dumped in a park near her home, relatives and police said.

In a separate incident on the other side of the city, the five-year-old was lured to a neighbour's house and raped by three men, a police officer told AFP.

The two attacks come as New Delhi grapples with a grim litany of sexual attacks against women -- and in several recent cases, children -- that have sparked outrage in India and abroad.

"We have launched a manhunt for the suspects. So far no one has been arrested," Pushpendra Kumar, West Delhi police chief, told AFP of the younger girl's case.

He said they found the younger child bleeding profusely several hours after she went missing and that tests showed she had been raped at least once.

Police have arrested three men in the case of the five-year-old victim whom tests showed was raped multiple times, after locals managed to catch her assailants and hand them over to the authorities.

"Her clothes were partially torn with blood spots all over them. Some locals saw her and she told them she was sexually assaulted," an officer from Anand Vihar police station told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Some of the locals then barged into the house and caught them (the alleged perpetrators) before handing them over to us," the officer said.  

Both girls are undergoing medical treatment but are believed to be out of danger.