Five senior police officers have been suspended over their handling of an investigation into the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman that has sparked outrage across India and triggered days of protests.
The seriously injured teenager from the Dalit caste was found in mid-September outside her village in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state and died this week in a New Delhi hospital.
The police have arrested four high-caste men on charges of gang rape and murder.
However, the police have faced criticism for cremating the woman’s body in the middle of the night — reportedly with the help of some gasoline — against the wishes of her family and religious custom.
A senior policeman on Thursday sparked further outrage after saying that a forensic report and an autopsy had shown that the woman had not been raped.
This contradicts statements from the victim and her mother and reported hospital findings, while experts said that the forensic test was carried out too long after the attack.
Hundreds of police have also barricaded the village, preventing the woman’s family from leaving and journalists and opposition politicians from talking to them.
The family’s mobile phones have also reportedly been seized.
The victim’s brother told one Indian news channel that the family were scared for their lives.
The local high court has ordered authorities to provide the family protection.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath late on Friday announced the suspension of the Hathras district police chief and four others.
The Hindu monk and close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced that the victim’s family, the accused and the suspended policemen would all undergo lie detector and drug tests.
In the latest protest on Friday night, about 500 people including the capital’s chief minister and a prominent Dalit politician gathered in central New Delhi demanding justice.
“We [women] are not actually free, even though India is independent,” said Sanskriti, one of the women at the Delhi protest site.
“This is something I want to raise my voice against, and I just wish all the people get united and they understand that it is high time to do something about it,” she added
An average of 87 rapes were reported in India every day last year, Indian National Crime Records Bureau data showed, but large numbers are thought to go unreported.
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