Two men from the village of the girl in the state of Uttar Pradesh were arrested on suspicion of murder after she was found injured in the field after the death, according to police. Additional allegations of rape and rape were added following a post-mortem.
India’s caste system was officially abolished in 1950, but the 2,000-year-old social hierarchy imposed on people by birth still exists in many aspects of life. The caste system categorizes Hindus at birth, and defines their place in society, what jobs they can do and with whom they can marry.
A case under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Wrocities) Act has also been filed against the two arrested men, police said.
The girl left her home in the village of Pakaria in the Lakhimpur Kheri district on Friday afternoon for a toilet break in nearby fields, said Sandeep Kumar, a junior officer at Uttar Pradesh police.
When she did not return, her family began searching for her and found her body in a sugar field, Kumar said.
A post-mortem investigation found the girl was raped and died by stranger, according to Kumar. He denied that her body was missing in any way, as claimed in some local media reports.
Kumar declined to comment if the crimes were committed against the girl because she was a Dalit. He said an investigation is still ongoing.
Chandrashekhar Azad, a Dalit rights activist, said oppression against Dalits was “at a peak” under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Our daughters are not safe, our homes are not safe, there is an atmosphere of fear around us,” Azad tweeted on Saturday.
An ongoing problem
News of the girl’s death has sparked fresh anger in India, which has to do with the growing problem of sexual violence against women.
According to the Indian National Crime Records Bureau, more than 33,000 cases of suspected rape were reported in the last available figures of 2018 – roughly 91 cases every day. But experts say the true number is likely to be much higher, due to the shame associated with sexual assault and the social barriers victims have.
“The unjustified murder and rape of a girl in Lakhimpur Kheri is an incident that has shaken humanity,” tweeted Akhilesh Yadav, the former prime minister of Uttar Pradesh and a member of the opposition Samajwadi party, on Sunday.
In India, sexual assault has in the past been seen by authorities as more of a social and cultural issue rather than a concern for law enforcement, according to women’s rights activists, with existing laws not protecting women.
Unlike previous high-profile rape cases, the girl’s murder did not draw any street protests, in part because of the Covid-19 outbreak that occurred in India, which has more than 2.6 million cases of the disease. seen.
Additional legislation was passed in 2018 following the heavily publicized rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl. The amended law extended prison sentences and introduced the death penalty in cases where the victim is younger than 12 years.
However, many of the problems associated with India’s rape crisis continue and cases of high profile rape have continued with headlines.
CNN’s Julia Hollingsworth contributed reporting.
.
