The Allahabad High Court on Friday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the Bulandshahr gangrape case, in which a group of highway robbers assaulted a Noida woman and her daughter on July 29. The Uttar Pradesh government had filed status report in the case before the bench the previous day, PTI report. The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the incident, which had caused widespread outrage and drawn some serious flak for the state government.

A group of men, believed to be from the Bawaria tribe, had raped a 35-year-old woman and her teenage daughter on the Delhi-Kanpur highway when the family was travelling from Noida to Shahjahanpur to attend a relative’s funeral. The men allegedly surrounded the their car and forced all of them into a field nearby. There, they assaulted the woman and the 15-year-old girl and robbed the family. The incident reportedly took place only around 100 metres from a police post in Bulandshahr.

On Tuesday, the police had arrested three of them, including the main accused, bringing the total number of arrests up to six.