Uttar Pradesh police have deployed dozens of personnel to and around the village of Hathras, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped last month, sparking national outrage over the gruesome crime and sparking a barrage of criticism of women. the hasty cremation past midnight. She died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday, 15 days after she was gang-raped in Hathras while she was out foraging with her mother.
The decision to seal off the village to prevent the entry of opposition leaders and the media is seen as an ongoing effort to quell growing public anger over the administration’s handling of the young woman’s death. Authorities had spoken yesterday of a plan to declare the village a Covid-19 containment zone on suspicions that some police officers may have contracted the coronavirus infection.
Congressional leader Rahul Gandhi was detained on the Yamuna Highway, an hour’s drive from the national capital, Delhi, for violating prohibition orders prohibiting the gathering of more than four people.
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On Friday, the leader of the Trinamool Congress, Derek O’Brien, arrived in the district 200 km from Delhi with some party leaders, but was detained 1.5 km from the girl’s home in Boolgarhi village. Derek O’Brien, still insisting on meeting his family, was pushed to the ground by a police team.
A teenager who left the village on Friday morning alleged that the police had confiscated the mobile phones of the rape victim’s family and that the family wanted to make a statement to the media. It also alleged that the victim’s father was assaulted by the police and consequently briefly passed out. But the administration did not allow journalists to pass the barricades.
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Reporters who tried to sneak into the town were also detained by police teams. A television channel aired clips of a journalist trying to reach the young woman’s house through the fields detained by a police team. Another was seen squatting on the road, demanding to know under what law the police could prevent journalists from meeting with the family. The police officer said he had instructions to keep outsiders out.
District Magistrate Praveen Kumar and Police Superintendent Vikrant Vir were not available for comment.
Praveen Kumar had landed in the middle of a new political dispute after being seen in a 22-second video, possibly leaked by the victim’s family, where the official tells the woman’s father that the media would not be present. forever.
“We are the ones who would be with you and therefore it is your wish whether you wish to change your statements or not. Do not damage your credibility, otherwise we could also change ”, allegedly says the district magistrate in the video.
Praveen Kumar did not respond to questions in the video, but later issued a statement through the ANI news agency.
“Yesterday I met with six relatives of the victim and we talked for about an hour and a half. I met with them again today (Thursday) to see their point of discontent. I deny the negative rumors that abound about my interactions with them, ”Praveen Kumar said, according to ANI.
Praveen Kumar and the district police chief, Vikrant Vir, are among the UP officials who have been summoned by the Lucknow court of the Allahabad High Court on October 12 to report on the facts of the case. In an 11-page warrant dismissing the alleged violation of the rights of the victim’s family, Justices Rajan Roy and Jaspreet Singh noted that the events following the woman’s death had “shocked our conscience”.
The judges have also summoned the Dalit family of the victim so that the court can hear the facts and their version of the facts about the cremation of the woman. The state government has been told to ensure that no one exerts any coercion, influence or pressure on the relatives of the deceased in any way.
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