Social activist Teesta Setalvad has accused the Uttar Pradesh police of “complicity” in protecting men accused of being gang members and fatally assaulting a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras, following recent attempts by high-ranking officials of the police downplaying the crime. In one request, Setalvad demanded a court-supervised investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation and urged the witnesses in the case to be protected by the central paramilitary forces.
On Monday, the Supreme Court took up a public interest litigation (PIL) brought by three lawyers led by Satyama Dubey demanding that the Uttar Pradesh police investigation be transferred to CBI. The court called the incident “horrifying” and asked the state government to highlight the steps taken to protect the woman’s family and witnesses in the case.
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At the PIL, which is expected to be heard next week, Setalvad said she was alarmed by repeated statements issued by senior police officers and elected representatives denying the violation even before the investigation of the case was concluded.
On October 1, the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Prashant Kumar, said that the forensic reports of the case did not establish violation. In his request, Setalvad, through his NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, said: “In view of the fact that the victim was found naked by her mother with vaginal bleeding, it indicates that sexual violence has indeed occurred. The statement to the contrary is irresponsible and indicates malfeasance and complicity ”.
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His lawyer Aparna Bhatt, who filed the request, said: “It is alarming that when the Supreme Court has held that cases of sexual violence should be handled with the utmost sensitivity, these blatant statements are being made public.” The application has requested a court supervised investigation with periodic investigation progress reports to be submitted to the higher court.
Setalvad also demanded a judicial investigation into the decision to incinerate the woman’s body in the middle of the night under the surveillance of police and district officials. “There has to be a line-of-command investigation into who ordered the cremation … The decision (to cremate) was not spontaneous, but well planned and organized.” The request asks a former Supreme Court judge to investigate the circumstances that led to the woman’s cremation after midnight in an open field near Hathras.
Highlighting a statement issued by the UP government spokesman on October 2 that mentioned subjecting the woman’s relatives to polygraph tests and narco-analysis together with the accused, Setalvad said: “Subjecting the relatives to such tests when they are not charged or registered under any charges in the matter is a major defiance of the law. Furthermore, a constitutional tribunal of the Supreme Court in Selvi against the state of Karnataka (2010) has held that no individual can be subjected to force to a narco-analysis, since doing so would amount to an ‘unjustified interference with personal freedom’ ”.
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