Family members of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after allegedly being raped by four men in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district will appear before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court amid tight security on Monday.
Hathras Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal on Saturday told that the district judge of Hathras has been appointed as the nodal officer for the appearance of the Hathras victim’s family member before the high court.
The police and district administration are working on an elaborate plan in this regard as to how many family members will go and when they will depart from Hathras.
The Hathras Police will be responsible for their security and a detailed plan is being made, Jaiswal said.
Sixty security personnel have been deployed and eight close circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed at the house of the alleged gangrape victim in her village in Bulgarhi area in Hathras to ensure the safety of her family members, according to police.
DIG Shalabh Mathur, who has been sent to Hathras from Lucknow as a nodal officer, said if needed a control room would also be established there.
With the help of CCTV cameras, the house of the victim was being monitored round-the-clock, police said.
The Hathras SP said a register of visitors was being maintained by policemen at the entry of the house.
Speaking with India Today TV, the Hathras victim’s sister-in-law said, “We are going to the court for justice. We are not afraid, we will tell everything to the court. I want to say that the police should take us safely and bring us back to our home safely.”
“Shocked” by the alleged gang-rape and murder of the 19-year-old Dalit woman and her forcible cremation subsequently, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on October 1 had summoned top government officials to the court.
A division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Jaspreet Singh had ordered the Uttar Pradesh additional chief secretary, state police chief and an additional director general of police to appear before it on October 12 to explain the incident.
Taking suo motu cognisance of the case, which has triggered widespread outrage, the bench also ordered Hathras district magistrate and superintendent of police to appear to apprise the court of various aspects of the case, including the ongoing probe into it.
The bench had also asked the late woman’s parents to come to the court to apprise it of their versions of the incident and ordered the Hathras district administration to arrange for their travel to the court and facilitate their appearance before it.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday registered a case against an accused in the case. A team has also been constituted to probe the Hathras case.
In a press release, the CBI stated that the investigation agency has registered a case against an accused and taken over the investigation in the Hathras case.
