Hathras 'Not as guilty as painted': Former BJP legislator on arrested Hathras gang rape accused
Hathras/IBNS: A former BJP legislator Rajveer Pahalwan called a mahapanchayat of the uppercaste members at his residence in Hathras on Sunday, amid nationwide outcry over the savage assault and the death of a 19-year-old girl in its aftermath, media reports said.
According to a Hindustan Times report, in the meeting Pahalwan said the accused who have been arrested in the case are not that guilty as being painted.
He also welcomed the state government's decision to handover the investigation to CBI, saying that this will "reveal the truth about the incident".
According to the report, the uppercaste members also questioned the woman's family denying the narco test.
The advocates in the uppercaste gathering said they would meet the SIT formed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the investigation in the case.
The state government on Friday ordered narco-analysis polygraph tests for everyone involved in the case, including the victim's family, after the autopsy conducted at AMU Medical College and Hospital prima facie showed that there had been no rape, contradicting the victim's statement that she had been gangraped by her perpetrators on September 14.
On September 29, the woman succumbed to her injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.
Reports said her family was whisked away in an SUV right from the hospital and transported to their village in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh. They were locked in their home in the village while the police cremated her body in the dead of the night in the absence of the family members.
The aggrieved family has alleged that they had requested the police to not cremate the body at night, the police ignored their pleas.
The hurried cremation sparked intense criticism against the UP government, which was already under scanner over the mishandling of the brutal sexual assault on the woman.
The victim's kin have demanded a judicial probe through the Supreme Court in the case instead of the CBI investigation.
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