Bodies of three women recovered from fields

The decomposed bodies of three young women were recovered from fields in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Deoria district, police said Friday.

The bodies were half-buried and found late Thursday from the fields in Singideeh village.

"The locals spotted the bodies after they noticed several dogs digging up mud at the site where they were buried," police inspector Raj Kumar told reporters in Deoria, some 300 km from here.

The three victims -- Neeta, 18, Anita, 20, and Sarita, 20 -- were friends and had gone missing since Oct 31. Sarita's body has been beheaded, police said.

However, the victims' families had not registered any missing report, bringing them under suspicion, Kumar said. "Moreover, the families are giving contradictory statements in response to our questions," he added.

"The bodies are highly decomposed. We have to wait for the post-mortem reports to ascertain the cause of the deaths," he said.