On Wednesday, the three-member special investigation team (SIT) formed to investigate the accused gangrape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman was expected to submit its report.
The government, however, has increased the deadline by another ten days, reports said.
The Yogi Adityanath government suspended Hathras SP and four other police officers for their ‘handling’ of the case on the basis of the preliminary findings of the SIT.
The SIT, led by Uttar Pradesh Home Secretary Bhagwan Swaroop, also suggested that all those involved, including the suspect’s family members, undergo lie detector tests.
The other two parts of the SIT are Deputy Police Inspector General Chandraprakash and IPS Officer Poonam. The woman was reportedly gang-raped on September 14 and assaulted.
After her health deteriorated, she was admitted to Aligarh Muslim University’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, where she was moved to Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital.
She succumbed to her burns in Delhi on September 29. Her body was hurriedly cremated at night with no one among her family present, though all charges were refuted by the Hathras police.
While the police continued to sequester the village, the brutality of the crime and hurried action of the Hathras police attracted national condemnation. No politicians were permitted, family members were prohibited from talking to the media.
The UP government took some ‘corrective action’ in the face of nationwide protest and eased the restrictions. The SIT team went to the village on Tuesday and visited the place where the women were cremated.
The Supreme Court has been ordered by the Yogi Adityanath government to order a court-monitored CBI investigation into the gangrape case. The midnight cremation was also said to be done to prevent the large-scale shooting, which was apprehended the following morning.
“In order to prevent large-scale abuse in the morning, the district administration took the decision to persuade the victim’s parents to cremate her with all religious rites at night.
The affidavit filed by the state court before the Supreme Court stated that once the post mortem of the deceased victim was already carried out at Safdarjung hospital,
New Delhi, no bad intention on the side of anyone to speed up the death except to obviate the violent political situation resulting from the expected caste divide by certain vested interests.
