Rape of Hathras: The 20-year-old woman was cremated by police officers in her village.
New Delhi:
The death of a 20-year-old woman after being gang-raped and tortured in Hathras of Uttar Pradesh continues to provoke anger and pain across the country. The woman, who died in Delhi on Tuesday, was cremated by police officers in her village last night, allegedly while her family was locked up in their home.
“The victim of Hathras was raped first by some men and then yesterday she was mistreated by the whole system. The whole episode is very painful,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.
The main leader of Congress, Rahul Gandhi, who had called gangrape and murder of the “jungle of specific classes rajof UP, today condemned the way in which the woman was cremated.
“A daughter of India has been raped and murdered. The facts are suppressed and, in the end, her family’s rights to exercise the last rights are taken away. This is insulting and unfair,” Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.
News of his death at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital had sparked protests outside the hospital on Tuesday, with Bhim’s army of Chandrashekhar Azad “Raavan” blocking roads for hours and protesters shouting “Hang up the rapists.” The woman’s brothers complained that the police took her body without her knowledge.
On social media, there has been a torrent of pain and anger from party politicians, celebrities, and others.
A disturbing sequence of events captured in nighttime footage shows the woman’s family arguing with the police, relatives throwing themselves on the hood of the ambulance carrying the body, and the woman’s mother crying helplessly after cremation.
“Even criminals are allowed dignified cremation. Here is a rape victim being cremated by the police at 2:30 am with no family members. Could this happen if the family was not Dalit? This is a shame national. “Yogendra Yadav tweeted.
Even criminals are allowed a dignified cremation. Here is a rape victim who was cremated by the police at 2:30 am with no relatives.
Could this happen if the family was not Dalit?
This is a source of national shame.
Our own George Floyd moment.#HathrasHorrorShocksIndiahttps://t.co/2nyzM2bQ3C– Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) September 30, 2020
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra continued her attack on the UP government, demanding the resignation of the chief minister, Yogi Adityanath. He said the woman’s father “was robbed of the opportunity to take his daughter home one last time and perform her last rites.”
“He had just told me that all he wanted was justice for his son. Last night he was robbed of the opportunity to take his daughter home one last time and perform her last rites,” he said in a series of tweets.
@myogiadityanath GIVE UP
Instead of protecting the victim and her family, her government became complicit in depriving her of all human rights, even in death. You have no moral right to continue as Chief Minister. 3/3
– Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) September 30, 2020
Bahujan Samaj’s party chief Mayawati, her party also condemned the way the woman was cremated.
The four attackers, men of upper castes from the village of women, are in jail. Now they will also be charged with murder.
Cricket player Virat Kohli on Tuesday called the incident “inhumane” and hoped that those guilty of the heinous crime would be brought to justice. “What happened in #Hathras is inhuman and goes beyond cruelty. I hope that those guilty of this heinous crime will be brought to justice,” he tweeted.
The woman had suffered multiple fractures, paralysis and a deep cut to her tongue in the assault that paralleled the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape.
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