Hathras gang rape: Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will meet the woman’s family.
New Delhi:
Congressional leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will visit Hathras in Uttar Pradesh today to meet the family of the 20-year-old woman who died after being gang-raped and tortured and whose cremation at night by the police of the UP sparked national outrage.
The woman died Tuesday at a Delhi hospital. She had suffered multiple fractures, paralysis and a neck injury had left her with difficulty breathing when she was assaulted by four upper caste men from her village on 14 September. Police said she had a wound on her tongue because she had bitten it when the men tried to strangle her.
To add to the family’s grief, the UP police took his body, went to his village in Hathras and forcibly cremated him, with the family locked in their home. The woman’s parents had begged that they be allowed to bring her body home and perform the last rite the next morning.
The woman was cremated at 2.30am with only a few police officers around and no family members. The rush by UP police to cremate the body was seen as a desperate attempt to cover up what has been a series of lapses in the case.
The woman’s family alleged that the police had been slow to respond to their complaint and that the administration had been negligent because they belonged to the Dalits or disadvantaged castes.
The incident has drawn public ire and Yogi Adityanath’s UP government has come under fire from the opposition for recent crimes against women.
Congressional MP Rahul Gandhi said: “This is all a shameful move by the UP government to suppress Dalits and show them their ” place ” in society. Our fight is against this hateful thinking.” Rahul Gandhi was a Uttar Pradesh MP for three terms until he lost in his Amethi family stronghold last year.
His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is tasked with rebuilding Congress in the UP, said the chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, “had no moral right” to continue in office.
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