A week after the UP government had recommended a CBI probe into the alleged gangrape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl, the investigating agency registered a fresh FIR against one of the four accused. A CBI team also visited Hathras and is expected to begin the investigation soon.
“The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against an accused and taken over the investigation of the case, earlier registered ... at ... Hathras (Uttar Pradesh) on a complaint. The complainant had alleged that on 14.09.2020, the accused tried to strangulate his sister in the millet field ... A team has been constituted. Investigation is continuing,” a CBI press note said. The investigating officer in the case is DSP (ACB, Ghaziabad) Seema Pahuja.
The CBI registered an FIR against main accused Sandeep under sections 376D (gang rape), 307 (attempt to murder) and 302 (murder) of the IPC and Section 3 of the SC/ST Act (offences of atrocities). “In pursuance of UP government’s consent and Union government’s order dated 10 October, the CBI takes over the investigation of the case,” the FIR said.
It was based on the police FIR at the Chandpa station that followed a complaint by the victim’s brother on September 14, the day she was allegedly gangraped. She died 15 days later in a Delhi hospital.
‘All case-related documents given to CBI’
A senior police official in Hathras confirmed the CBI team had visited the village on Sunday. Police handed over all case-related documents to the CBI. “All paperwork has been wrapped up today. Their investigation will begin tomorrow,” the senior official said, adding that the team has not met the victim’s family yet. Fifteen CBI officials are expected to be in Hathras for the next couple of weeks, a senior cop said. The SIT formed by the government, meanwhile, will continue its probe into police’s role in the incident. “That investigation is not related to the main case,” the senior cop added.
Girl cremated sans its consent
Family members of the victim requested the high court to shift the case out of Uttar Pradesh. Appearing before the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court, which took suo motu cognizance of the case, the parents and siblings of the victim also said that their consent was not taken for her cremation.
The bench of Justice Pankaj Mittal and Justice Ranjan Roy heard the depositions of the victim's family members and top UP government officials who were summoned by the court while taking suo motu cognizance of the incident, in which the alleged rape victim was hurriedly cremated by the local police after September 29 midnight.
Hathras DM, Praveen Kumar Laxkar, who also appeared before the court, took full responsibility of the cremation. He told the court that there was no pressure from the government and it was the decision of the local administration, keeping in mind the law and order situation and also because the body was decomposing.
Videos narrate her rape and the ordeal
At least in three videos before she died, the 19-year-old had said she had been raped. “Zabardasti” is the word that recurs in all three videos, in which she repeats the same harrowing account. This is how they are, she had said, and they had attempted this before. In the first, a 48-second video shot on September 14, she is lying on the floor outside the Chandpa police station, flies hovering and ants crawling about her. “They strangled me,” she says. A man asks why. She hesitates. Asked again, she answers, “I didn’t let them force themselves on me.” The man asks again, “Why did they strangle you?” She repeats, “Because I resisted.” When asked if she has any other injuries, she sticks out her tongue, full of gashes.
The second video, 46-second-long, was shot at the district hospital in Hathras the same day. She was first taken there. Lying on a bed, she is asked by a journalist - who hurt her? “Sandeep,” she answers. The third, part of the statement she had given to the police on September 22, was at Aligarh’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College. In the 5-minute 17-second video, the girl goes over what had happened again. “I was raped. Ravi and Sandeep were in together … They had tried to rape me a month ago, but I had run away,” she says through an oxygen mask. “But that day, I was raped. The two raped me, the rest ran away when they saw my mother approach. I was partially conscious by then.” When she is asked if she has been pressured into saying she has been raped, she says, “Koi dabav nahin hai (there is no pressure). Woh log aise hi hain (that is how they are) … He should not be spared, he can do this again. He threatens me, goli se uda doonga.”
