The Haryana Police on Monday told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that they have added a gangrape charge to the First Information Report filed in the case of alleged sexual violence at Murthal during February’s Jat protests (pictured above). The move is significant as the Haryana government and police had first denied that any sexual assault took place during the agitations, in which the Jats were demanding a quota in government jobs. The police said they are investigating two letters that have surfaced from survivors who said they were gangraped during the protests, one of them a local student and another a Non-Resident Indian from Australia.

The police said the first letter was posted anonymously from Faridabad, and the victim identifies herself as a final-year college student. She wrote that she was assaulted while on her way back to her college hostel with her father. In the second letter, which has been circulating on social media, the woman says she was travelling on NH-1 with her family when some protestors raped her.

The next hearing in the case will take place on May 4. The court had taken suo motu cognisance of media reports saying at least 10 women were raped during the protests in Murthal. An FIR was filed based on a complaint by a Delhi resident on February 28.