Although it will take something. Just four days ago, three of the four upper caste men accused of the crime were acquitted by a local court. A fourth was convicted – but not of rape or murder – of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The victim’s distraught father and brother told TOI on Saturday, “Do you think it would have happened if the other way around, we were upper caste and they were Dalits?”
They no longer have any monthly source of income and the promise of a government job to a relative by the authorities remains unfulfilled. They want to go to Delhi fearing loss. They also want to transfer the case outside UP and hope that the Allahabad High Court will accept their petition. The father said, ‘We have been wronged. “We will fight in a higher court… bas nyay mil jaye (we only want justice).”
When TOI met the family in Hathras village, the father of the dead girl told this reporter: “We are literally jailed in our own home. For our safety, they say. around 30 CRPF Personnel protect them—with guns and tear gas—even though barbed wire fences surround the house. A metal detector beeps to life at all times and CCTV monitors continuously, without blinking an eye.
All visitors are barred at a safe distance; Vehicle number, mobile number, email ID are noted. After the identity of the guests is verified and established, they are reluctantly allowed access to the house and its occupants. Negotiations take place in the presence of a CRPF jawan. Inside, posters with letters and numbers hang on the walls of the two-room house, a poignant reminder of school and education for the family’s three young girls who have dropped out. He hasn’t seen his friends or his classes since 2020. They are not allowed to go out.
Prior to this heinous crime, the victim’s two brothers worked in Ghaziabad and Noida respectively, while the father had a job in a pathology lab in Hathras. All that is gone too.
The victim’s younger brother said, ‘I along with my elder brother and father used to earn around Rs 40,000 per month. This incident left us without employment. In July last year, the Supreme Court directed the UP government to consider giving a job to a family member within three months. Nothing has happened since then.
dalit family lawyer Seema KushwahaThey have said that they will appeal in the High Court. “I am sure the other three (who have been acquitted by the trial court) will also be convicted. strange that CBI The charge sheet was filed under 376-D (gang rape) and 302 (murder) among other stringent sections. yet it.
In December 2020, the CBI filed a charge sheet against four upper caste men and reprimanded the UP police for “inaction, delay and not following due process in recording the statement of the victim”. It had then noted: “Though the victim alleged molestation, her medical examination regarding sexual assault was not conducted… (she) categorically stated that she was gang-raped by the above four accused He had also named her in his dying declaration recorded on 22.09.2020…”
The girl later died at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital and Hathras authorities allegedly forcibly cremated the body that night, keeping away the victim’s family members, whose requests to take the body home for the last time were ignored. was done.
The family members of the three acquitted have been sent to the homes of relatives following “advice” from senior police officers. Thakurs are the largest community in the village with 450 registered voters, while Brahmins are the second largest group, accounting for almost half of the voters. thakur population. Valmiki, in comparison to the community the victim belonged to, is insignificant, having only three families, all linked to each other. In one corner of the house, the bones of the victim are kept in an urn. Pointing to him, his sister-in-law said, ‘We will not immerse him in the Ganges until all the accused are punished. Such brutality cannot be condoned.”
Watch Hathras case: Court convicts main accused, acquits three of all charges