Hathras Protest
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra to meet Hathras victim's family today
New Delhi/IBNS: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra will meet the kin of the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was gang-raped by four upper-caste men in Boolagarhi village of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh and later succumbed to her injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, along with other leaders on Saturday, two days after they were stopped by the state police on their way to victim's house, the party said.
“Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress President Shri. Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year-old daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted, murdered and the body cremated surreptitiously in the middle of the night by Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government,” the party said in a statement.
“The Congress delegation led by Shri. Rahul Gandhi and Smt Priyanka Gandhi will meet the family members to hear their grievances and demand justice for the victim and her family who have been denied justice and severely traumatized by the BJP Government in their desperate attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on the victim,” it added.
Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were briefly detained by Uttar Pradesh Police two days ago when they were heading towards Hathras on the grounds of a ban on public assembly in the area. They were taken to a guest house at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida and were later escorted back to Delhi.
A Trinamool Congress delegation, led by senior party leader Derek O’Brien, was also prevented by the police on Friday from going to the village of the gang-rape victim to meet her family.
Yesterday, senior BJP leader Uma Bharti urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to allow politicians and the media to meet the kin of the victim.
In a string of tweets, Uma Bharti, who is undergoing treatment for Covid-19, requested Adityanath to lift the siege around her home and also criticised the haste with which the young woman was cremated by police in the dead of the night while her family members were locked in their home.
A ban was imposed on public gathering and the media and political parties were stopped from meeting the young woman's family as the Uttar Pradesh government clamped Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in the area.
Allegedly, the police also seized the cell phones of the victim's relatives and put them under round-the-clock surveillance.
Reports said police sealed the village to ensure "outsiders” couldn't access the village, setting up barricades on the main road roughly 2km from the village, closing all access paths and deploying policemen on the field and mud tracks.
The police had said the restrictions had been imposed because of the ongoing probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).
The young woman was subjected to a savage assault and gang rape when she had gone to a field to collect fodder for cattle on September 14. She had suffered multiple fractures, paralysis, and severe spinal injury and eventually died last Tuesday.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
