A team of officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and forensic experts visited the crime scene in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped last month. The woman’s brother accompanied the investigators.
The CBI has registered a case against the main defendant Sandip Singh. He, along with three other defendants, all of high caste, are in jail. They were named after the victim before he died on September 29.
The central agency took over the investigation on the recommendation of Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath and a notification from the Center. The agents received the documents related to the case.
Before reaching the scene in the victim’s Boolgarhi village, the CBI team visited the Chandpa police station, below which the village falls, and questioned a police officer associated with the case.
The woman’s parents and two brothers appeared in the Lucknow court of the Allahabad High Court on Monday in connection with the rape case. They demanded that the high-profile trial be moved out of state, said their lawyer Seema Kushwaha, who also fought in the December 2012 gang rape case in Delhi.
The court condemned the forced cremation of the victim by the Uttar Pradesh police at 2.30am on September 30, sparking protests across the country. The 19-year-old died in a Delhi hospital after the assault and her relatives claimed that she was cremated against her wish. They had previously alleged that they could not even see his face before the police “burned the body with gasoline.”
However, the police have denied these accusations. The case will be known soon on November 2.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the state government was investigating the case previously. During Monday’s hearing, the victim’s attorney called the SIT revealing details of the call between the defendant and the victim’s brother and alleged that a “perception” was being created to divert the focus of the case.
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