Chandigarh, Aug. 27 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has acquitted four persons who were awarded the death sentence by a Sonepat court in the rape and murder case of two minor migrant girls in the Kundli area in Sonepat district in August 2021.

The allegations were that the girls, aged 15 and 13, were sleeping in a room with their mother on the intervening night of August 5-6, 2021, when the accused-Arun, Phool Chand, Dukhan, and Ram Suhag, who were also migrant labourers living next to the victims' rented accommodation-entered the room, raped the girls, and forcefully administered poison to them, while the woman was gagged and threatened.

At the time of the crime, the two eldest brothers of the victim girls were sleeping on the roo...