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NEW DELHI: A court in India ordered police to protect the family of a woman allegedly gang-raped and killed by four high-caste men, as her brother said they feared reprisals for the allegations.
The 19-year-old woman was attacked in mid-September and died this week, sparking outrage and again highlighting sexual violence in India, particularly attacks against lower-caste women.
With his hometown in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh entrenched by hundreds of policemen, the victim’s brother told Indian television on Thursday (October 1) that they were scared.
“We are not safe in this village. They can do anything to us. We do not trust the police or the administration. Our fears have increased now,” he said.
“We are on their radar more than ever. They will not let us live. We may have to leave the village. We do not trust the politicians.”
The state’s highest court ordered authorities on Thursday to “ensure that no one exerts any coercion, influence or pressure on the relatives of the deceased in any way.”
He harshly criticized the police for allegedly cremating the young woman in the middle of the night, against the wishes of the family and religious custom, after her body was brought from the New Delhi hospital where she died of her injuries on Tuesday.
“As things stand, the deceased victim was treated with extreme brutality by the perpetrators of the crime, and what is alleged to have happened next, if true, amounts to perpetuating the family’s misery and adding salt to their wounds.” , the judges. He said.
They set a hearing for October 12, summoning both the police and the victim’s family.
“DO NOT VIOLATE”
The nightly cremation further fueled allegations that local police were protecting the suspected culprits, who have been arrested on charges of gang rape and murder, and their well-connected upper caste families.
On Thursday, local police issued a statement saying that according to a forensic report “no rape was committed.”
The findings, which confirm those of a preliminary medical report and an autopsy, “exposed the conspiracy of those who tried to push the state into caste confusion,” local police official Prashant Kumar said, according to the statement.
This contradicts the statements of both the victim and her mother, and also the findings of the Delhi hospital when she was admitted, media reports said.
Experts question the forensic evidence cited by police, saying it was carried out for too long, eight days, after the attack.
Mishika Singh, a lawyer and activist, told AFP that the findings “were in no way conclusive evidence to say that no rape was committed.”
“Ignoring the victim’s declaration of death based on an inconclusive forensic report demonstrates the murky investigation that the police are conducting,” Singh said.
The young woman’s death comes months after four men were hanged for the gang rape and murder of a student on a bus in 2012 in New Delhi, in a case that came to symbolize India’s problems with sexual violence. .
The latest incident, and another gang rape and murder this week in the same area, has sparked days of protests and candlelit marches, as well as the condemnation of Bollywood politicians, activists and stars.
An average of 87 rapes were reported in India every day last year, according to data released Tuesday by the National Bureau of Criminal Records, but a large number are believed to go unreported.
