Don’t feel safe, anything can happen, we may leave village: Hathras victim’s brother

Several women members of the victim’s family were injured by the police last night as they demanded that the body be handed over to the family. (PTI photo)

The 19-year-old Dalit girl was first allegedly gang-raped and brutalised in Western Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras about a fortnight ago.

She was then denied dignity even in death when cops locked her family members in their Hathras village house and forcibly cremated the body late on Tuesday night after she succumbed at a Delhi hospital earlier in the day.

Now on India Today TV Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai’s show News Today at 9, on Wednesday night, the victim’s brother revealed how the family that wanted to see its daughter’s face one last time was denied the final farewell.

He said the police hurriedly burnt the body under the cover of darkness despite the family’s request for a proper funeral in the morning as Hindu rituals demand. The mother’s pleas also went unheard.

“We requested the cops to let us cremate the body in the morning, when more relatives are around but they locked us in our house. We don’t even know whose body it was we don’t know whether it was a body or something else. We weren’t allowed to even go near the ambulance,” the brother said.

He said several female family members were injured in the police high-handedness. “Nobody told us why the body was being burnt in the dead of the night. Everything was done forcibly, in the presence of the DM, the SDM and the SP. They lied that some family members were present at the funeral,” he said.

‘NO HELP FROM ANY QUARTER’

The victim’s brother said nobody from the village, which has only 4-5 Dalit households, has come to comfort the family. “No politician or officials helped us get my sister good medical treatment. We weren’t even given her medical reports. There was no focus on her treatment. There was carelessness,” he said.

‘WE’RE NOT SAFE, MAY LEAVE VILLAGE’

“We’re not safe in this village. They can do anything to us. We don’t trust the police or the administration. Our fears have increased now. We’re on their radar more than ever before. They won’t let us live. We might have to leave the village. We don’t trust politicians,” the victim’s brother said.

He said that the family wants all four arrested for the horrific crime must be given capital punishment. “We believe there is a cover-up going on. There should also be a CBI inquiry,” he said.

The victim’s brother also commented on the government’s scheme “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” and wondered how girls will be taught if they are gangraped and killed like this.

In a clip recorded on September 22, the Hathras victim is heard saying that the perpetrators, from an upper caste, had tried to rape her once before as well. “I was unconscious because of their torture, they still raped me,” she said.



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