Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Congress will meet with the family of the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was gang-raped and murdered in Hathras, along with other leaders on Saturday, a couple of days after they were detained by Uttar. Pradesh police on their way to their village, the party said.
“Deputies of Congress under the leadership of former Congress President Shri. Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras this afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year-old daughter from Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted, murdered and her body surreptitiously cremated in the middle of the night by the BJP government led by Yogi Adityanath ”. the party said in a statement.
“The congressional delegation headed by Shri. Rahul Gandhi and Smt Priyanka Gandhi will meet with family members to hear their complaints and demand justice for the victim and his family, who have been denied justice by the BJP government and are severely traumatized in their desperate attempt to hide the truth of the atrocious crime perpetrated on the victim ”, he added.
Read also | Prohibition orders imposed in Hathras, district borders sealed
Rahul Gandhi and his sister and the party’s general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi, were briefly detained on Thursday when they tried to visit Hathras on the grounds that there was a ban on public gatherings in the area. The police took them to a guest house on the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida before escorting them back to Delhi.
On Friday, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended a prayer meeting for the victim at a Valmiki temple in Delhi. She joined hundreds of people, including Congress leaders PL Punia, Sushmita Dev, Anil Choudhary and BV Srinivas, to show solidarity with women. Priyanka Gandhi told reporters that she was at the event to express her condolences and offer prayers for the deceased. “We are all here to make sure the girl receives justice. We will pressure the government for justice to be done, ”he said.
Read also | ‘Police officers outside the victim’s home bathrooms’
State police have deployed officers around town, preventing journalists from meeting with the family amid reports that authorities seized the phones of the victim’s relatives and placed them under surveillance. Since early Thursday morning, the police have set up barricades about 2 km from the town on the main road, blocking all access roads and deploying police officers on the mud tracks and in the fields to prevent any “outsiders” from entering the town.
Police have said that article 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prohibits the gathering of four or more people, was withheld in the area. A senior official said the ongoing investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions.
A four-member Congressional delegation from Trinamool, led by party leader Derek O’Brien, was also prevented on Friday by police from going to the village of the gang rape victim to meet his family.
Uttar Pradesh Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the suspension of Hathras Police Superintendent Vikrant Vir and three other police officers for their handling of the case. The prime minister made the decision based on an initial report from the SIT.
The woman was allegedly raped by four men of the dominant caste on 14 September when she had gone to the fields of her village to collect fodder for livestock. She was partially paralyzed and was admitted for treatment at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of the Muslim University of Aligarh and was later transferred to the Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi when her condition did not improve. She died Tuesday morning. The woman’s family has said she was forcibly cremated late at night.
.
