The victim had at least the right to a decent cremation, said the Allahabad High Court in Hathras (Archive)
New Delhi:
The Uttar Pradesh High Court said today that the cremation of the 20-year-old woman in Hathras by state authorities, although carried out in the name of law and order, “is prima facie a violation of the human rights of the victim and of his family”. The Lucknow court of the Allahabad High Court had taken up the case amid nationwide outrage over the brutal torture and alleged gangrape of the woman and the subsequent cremation by police at 2am.
In its order after yesterday’s hearing, the court, which is examining the role of the police in the matter, including secret cremation, said the woman had “at least the right to a decent cremation in accordance with her customs and rituals. religious, who must essentially be executed by his family. “
“Cremation is one of the ‘Sanskrit’, that is, the antim sanskar (funeral) recognized as an important ritual that could not have been compromised by taking refuge in the situation of law and order,” the court said.
The judges also warned against the “murder of character” of the 20-year-old. “No one should be allowed to murder the character of the victim in the same way that the accused should not be found guilty before a fair trial.”
With four alleged upper caste men indicted in the case, the community has voiced its defense. Several rounds of meetings took place over the past few weeks, and there have been reports that one of the men had been in a relationship. It was his family that was involved in his death, in what is known as honor killing, the community claimed.
There have been reports that the family was alerted to the relationship after more than a hundred phone calls between the woman and the accused.
Claims that the defendants had not committed any crime gained steam after forensic reports denied the possibility of rape. The question, however, remained open since the samples were collected days after the alleged event.
Yesterday, the court reminded the police about rape laws, which accept as fact the declaration of death of an assaulted woman.
“How do you know she was not raped? Is the investigation complete? Please review the new rape law of 2013,” the court told Senior Police Officer Prashant Kumar.
The woman, a member of the programmed castes, had died in a Delhi hospital after fighting for her life for two weeks. Half-strangled, with multiple fractures, naked, bleeding and paralyzed, her alleged upper-caste attackers left her for dead in a field on September 14.
The police cremated the body around 2 a.m., not allowing the family to perform the last rites or even allowing them to take her home for the last time. They were kept locked inside their home and were not allowed to attend the funeral.
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