Woman guard rape: Body cremated, police await autopsy report

A 19-year-old woman security guard, who was allegedly raped by her supervisor, has died and been cremated in Ghaziabad. Her family accused the police of pressuring them to perform the cremation after sunset, but the police denied the allegation. The cause of death remains inconclusive. The supervisor has been arrested.

The body of the 19-year-old woman security guard, who died a day after she was allegedly raped by her supervisor at the high-rise where she worked, was cremated on Tuesday morning in Ghaziabad. Her family had alleged on Monday night that the police were pressuring them to perform the cremation after sunset.

(Representative Image)

The police denied the allegation and said the autopsy of the woman, who died at Safdarjung hospital in Delhi early Monday, was conducted later in the day and the body handed over to her family by late evening.

“After the autopsy, the police brought the body in an ambulance to Hindon cremation ground and pressured us to perform the cremation. But our religion does not allow us to do so after sunset. The police also took out the keys of the ambulance and also took away the driver with them,” the woman’s brother claimed.

The police said they only handed over the body to the family who took it late night to their house in Ghaziabad and performed the cremation on Tuesday morning.

“There was some confusion in this regard as the ambulance driver had gone to have some food and this led to a delay and further allegations by the family. The issue was resolved and the body was handed to the family who took it to their house at night. The cremation was performed Tuesday morning,” said Vivek Chandra Yadav, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), rural.

According to the police, the woman became ill on Sunday afternoon and was admitted to a private hospital and later referred to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, where she died the next day. Her family alleged that her supervisor and two unidentified persons gang-raped her in their office at the high-rise on Saturday night.

On their complaint, the Crossings Republik police station registered an FIR of gang-rape, but later the woman in her statement to the magistrate named only the supervisor as her assaulter, after which the FIR was amended to rape.

The officials attached to the investigation said the autopsy of the victim remained inconclusive about the cause of death and the viscera has been preserved for further analysis. They added that the initial medical report indicated that the woman had no internal or external injuries and the cause of her ill health was damage to the lungs, according to doctors who treated her.

The woman’s family maintained that she was allegedly given some poisonous substance by the suspect after the her rape and this led to her falling ill.

“The written autopsy report is awaited even as doctors told us that the cause of death is inconclusive. Once the findings are received, more IPC sections will be added to the FIR. The supervisor has been arrested,” the DCP said.

A purported audio clip has also come to the fore in which the weeping woman could be heard telling a security officer about the alleged incident. Another video of her narrating the same thing to several persons standing near her has also surfaced. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio or video clip.