New Delhi: Section 144 was imposed in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh on Friday to stop meetings in the village of the Dalit woman who succumbed to her injuries 15 days after she was allegedly ganged up on by four upper caste men.
Since then, there has been an uproar across the country to seek justice for the victim, and the case has received extensive media coverage since the woman was cremated in the early morning of September 29. The family alleges that the cremation was hastily carried out by the UP police, without their consent. Three days after this, Hathras was sealed and section 144 was imposed for one month.
But this did not prevent the supporters of the four defendants, upper caste men from the Thakur community, from gathering their support. Organized by a local BJP leader, former Hathras MLA Rajveer Pahalwan, the protest was attended by right-wing groups such as Bajrang Dal, Karni Sena and RSS, some members of which are also part of caste organizations such as Rashtriya Savarna. Sangathan and Kshatriya Mahasabha.
Hundreds of people, including relatives of the four defendants, gathered outside Pahalwan’s home on Sunday to demand justice for the four defendants.
Even as the victim’s relatives have been calling for a judicial investigation into the case, UP Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath recommended an IWC investigation into the Hathras case on Saturday. The demonstration in support of the accused also welcomed the possibility that the IWC would take over the investigation. Pahalwan said, to this, “The truth will come out [then]. Such a heinous rape was wrongly projected to have occurred on Hathras. A CBI investigation into the case will reveal the truth about the incident. ”At the same time, he also expressed concern that the victim’s family refused to carry out the narco-analysis or the lie detector test.
On the imposition of Section 144 on Hathras, he said: “This meeting has been held in my personal space. It did not require any permission from the authorities. ”Pahalwan also claimed that the four defendants were not guilty, although the investigation has not been completed.
Pahalwan’s son, Manveer Singh, denied that the gathering consisted solely of members of the upper castes, saying that people from different sectors of society had joined the protest. He also accused Congress and the Samajwadi Party of trying to influence the victim’s family. He then added that various legal options are being explored to defend the accused. He also claimed that the detention of the accused in their homes was “proof” of their “innocence”. He claimed that they would have run away from their homes had they been guilty.
Some members of the demonstration also claimed that it was possible that the woman was killed by her own family, claiming that it was an honor killing case. This theory echoes one that was being put forward in the village by some higher caste families when The wire visited the village after the victim’s cremation. The woman’s family denies these claims. The woman had also made a dying statement on September 22, in which she said she was raped and identified the four men who assaulted her.
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