Police face criticism for cremating the body of a teenage girl against her family’s wishes and religious customs.
Five senior police officers have been suspended for handling an investigation into the alleged gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman that has sparked outrage across India and sparked days of protests.
The seriously injured teenager from the Dalit caste, formerly the “untouchables”, was found in mid-September outside her village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and died this week in a hospital in New Delhi.
Police arrested four upper caste men on charges of gang rape and murder.
But police have faced criticism for trying to destroy the evidence by cremating the woman’s body in the middle of the night, allegedly using gasoline, against her family’s wishes and religious custom.
The teenager’s body was cremated in the open on Wednesday (9:30 PM GMT Tuesday) in Hathras, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the Indian capital, in the presence of police and other officials.
“We told the administration that we wanted to cremate her in the morning according to Hindu rituals, but they did not listen to us. They locked us inside our house and burned her body, ”the girl’s brother told Al Jazeera.
“We kept shouting from inside the house but they didn’t hear us and they burned her with gasoline. Gasoline is never used for the last rites, but why would they care? “
The family said they wanted to see the girl’s face again before cremation, but authorities refused.
“The last time we saw his face was right after the autopsy [autopsy] it was done. They did not even grant us the basic dignity of allowing us to see his face one last time, ”said his brother.
A senior police officer sparked outrage Thursday after claiming that a forensic report and autopsy had shown the woman had not been raped.
This contradicts the statements of the victim and her mother and the reported hospital findings, while experts said the forensic test was carried out too long after the attack.
Hundreds of policemen have also barricaded the town, preventing the woman’s family from leaving, and preventing journalists and opposition politicians from speaking with them.
The family’s mobile phones were also reportedly seized.
Suspended officers
Uttar Pradesh Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath announced on Friday night the suspension of the Hathras District Police Chief and four others.
The Hindu monk and close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced that the family of the victim, the accused and the suspended police officers would undergo a lie detector test and drug tests.
On Friday night at the latest protest, approximately 500 people, including the capital’s prime minister and a prominent Dalit politician, gathered in central New Delhi to demand justice.
“We (women) are not really free, although India is independent,” Sanskriti, one of the women at the Delhi protest site, told AFP news agency.
“This is something I want to speak out against. And I just want all people to come together and understand that it is time to do something about it, “he added.
The young woman’s death comes months after four men were hanged for the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi, in a case that came to symbolize India’s epidemic of sexual violence.
On average, 87 rapes were reported in India every day last year, according to data from the National Bureau of Criminal Records, but a large number are believed to go unreported.
