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'Sex attacker' has penis cut off with a cleaver in India!

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A MAN accused of trying to rape a teenage girl in India is in critical condition after locals hacked off his penis.

The intended victim was saved after her screams were heard by passers by in north-western city of Ganganagar.

They allegedly found the 40-year-old suspected attacker pinning the girl to a wall, and dragged him away for a 'vigilante community meeting'.

Locals then took him to a butcher's shop where he was beaten, before his genitals were brutally chopped off with a meat cleaver.

The man is being treated in hospital, where his condition is described as critical.

A photo showing the severed appendance has been released, but is too graphic to be published.

A witness said: "No one went to help the man because they could see his penis on the ground and knew this was punishment for a sex crime.

"We have had a lot of intolerable offences against women in this country recently, with girls being raped, hung, and molested, and it's time it stopped.

"This sends out a very strong message to anyone like that - if you do it you will be punished."

But the police have called for those responsible to come forward.

A spokesman said: "People cannot take the law into your own hands.

"As deplorable as these crimes are, law and order has to be maintained, and not lynch justice. We ask those men who carried out this attack to hand themselves in before we find them."

The teenage girl has been treated for shock, and given counselling.

India has seen a spate of high profile violent attacks on women in recent years.

In 2012, a 23-year-old woman died after being attacked and gang-raped on a bus in Delhi in a case which sent shockwaves around the world.

The attack sparked a wave of protests across India.

In May, two young girls were found hanged from a tree in the state of Uttar Pradesh, amid reports they had been sexually assaulted.