TIO
Pointing to the discrimination based on religion and caste people face in the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday took a swipe at the Yogi Adityanath government, Uttar Pradesh police and citizens for the whom the Hathras gang-rape victim, a 19-year-old Dalit woman, was “no one.”
“The shameful truth is many Indians don’t consider Dalits, Muslims and Tribals to be human. The CM & his police say no one was raped because for them, and many other Indians, she was NO ONE,” Gandhi wrote on Twitter this morning and shared a news report about why the police were denying the rape when the woman repeatedly reported the assault.
The woman from Hathras’ Bulgarhi village was allegedly raped by four “upper caste” men earlier in September. She died at a hospital in Delhi later and on the following day she was cremated by the UP police at 2:30am even as her family protested.
The state police have denied that the woman was raped saying her postmortem report did not confirm rape and that it states that she died due to a neck injury. Hathras district magistrate (DM) Praveen Kumar also made similar claims.
“Postmortem report says the victim died due to her neck injury. FSL report hasn’t found sperm in samples, making it clear that some ppl twisted the matter to stir caste-based tension. Such people will be identified & legal action will be taken,” ADG Prashant Kumar was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The report has been prepared by the Aligarh Muslim University Medical College, where the woman was being treated before she was shifted to Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has now taken over the gang-rape case, which was being probed by Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the UP government.
Gandhi had earlier slammed the UP administration over the case and while visiting the victim’s family he assured them of support in seeking justice for their daughter. Earlier this week, Gandhi also hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “not saying a word” about the assault.
“It is interesting that the woman was raped and murdered and the entire UP administration targeted her family but the Prime Minister hasn’t said a word on the issue,” he had said while speaking with reporters in Punjab.
