A 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras and succumbed to her injuries in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital earlier this week. Her family members have claimed that the police cremated her forcefully in the dead of the night and they were not even allowed to bring the body home.
The details of the gruesome incident have sent shockwaves across the country and triggered a massive outrage. Activists and opposition leaders have demanded the resignation of chief minister Yogi Adityanath over the handling of the case even as a series of rapes were reported from the state.
Here are the latest developments in the Hathras case:
* The administration has sealed the borders of the district. Police have set up barricades roughly 2km from the Bul Gargi on the main road, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen even on the mud tracks and in the fields to ward off any “outsiders” from accessing the village.
* Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure will remain in effect till October 31.
reported that a boy, who claimed to be a relative of the victim, alleged their family’s phones have been confiscated and their outdoor movements confined.
* “My family members are being threatened. My uncle asked me to try to reach out to the media. My uncle was assaulted by DM sahib yesterday, after which he fell unconscious,” quoted the boy as saying. He made the comments while speaking to the media outside the village. According to the report, the boy came out of the village after walking through the farms.
* A villager said on the condition of anonymity that apart from the streets, police are also camping outside the toilets of the victim’s house. “The women of the house are finding it difficult to visit the toilet with policemen standing right outside,” said the person, who emerged from the village on the pretext of meeting a doctor.
Adityanath has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the case of the alleged murder and gang-rape of the woman. On the basis of a preliminary inquiry report sent on Friday, the chief minister suspended the superintendent of police Vikrant Vir and four other policemen.
* Several opposition leaders including, Trinamool Congress’ Derek O’Brien, Congress’ Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have tried reaching the village but stopped and manhandled by the police.
* On Friday, O’Brien and others managed to enter the victim’s village but were unable to meet the family. When O’Brien tried to reach the village along with other lawmakers, he was pushed to the ground by a team of the Uttar Pradesh police.
* On Thursday, Gandhi siblings were briefly detained while they were on their way to the village. During the scuffle with police, Gandhi could be seen falling on the ground in videos.
* West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will on Saturday lead a protest march in Kolkata against the Hathras gang-rape case. The rally will start at 4pm and the participants will walk from Birla Planetarium to Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in central Kolkata.
