Four men who were arrested in connection with the alleged gangrape and murder of a woman veterinarian near Hyderabad were sent to judicial custody for 14 days on Saturday, IANS reported. The accused were taken to Chanchalguda Central Jail.

The accused were booked under Sections 376 of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for rape), 302 (punishment for murder) and sections of the Nirbhaya Act, The News Minute reported.

Meanwhile, protestors gathered in front of Shadnagar police station and chanted slogans against the accused. The protestors demanded that the accused be publicly hanged. Police baton-charged protestors and tightened security in the area to prevent violence. A video showed protestors throwing slippers at police.

The accused could not be produced at a fast-track court at Mahabubnagar as the judge there was not available and also due to the situation outside the police station. The magistrate had to be brought for the hearing through a back door, according to IANS.

The accused were identified as Mohammed Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jollu Shiva and Jollu Naveen. Two of them are truck drivers.

The 27-year-old woman went missing late on Wednesday after the accused, who had deflated her tyres in her absence near the Shamshabad toll plaza, offered to help her. The woman’s sister had called the police to file a complaint on Wednesday night. She said that despite calling the police, officials had not searched areas near the toll plaza for her sister, whose body was found on Thursday, The New Indian Express reported. The woman was allegedly gangraped by the accused before being killed and set on fire.

The woman’s sister said that police had asked seemingly irrelevant questions such as whether the victim had a boyfriend, was regularly in touch with any men, and if she spoke on her phone for long periods of time. There was also outrage after Telangana Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali asked why the woman had first called her sister, and not the police.