E-Paper
Prayagraj police attempting to ‘bury’ rape evidence in Khevrajpur murders: TMC to NHRC
Five members of a family were battered to death and their house set afire in Khevrajpur on April 23.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Tuesday wrote to National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) alleging “omissions” on the part of the Prayagraj police and alleged it was trying to “bury” evidence of rape in the Khevrajpur village incident of Prayagraj district.
Five members of a family were battered to death and their house set afire in Khevrajpur on April 23.
A fact-finding delegation of the TMC comprising West Bengal minister for state for food and civil supplies Jyotsna Mandi, MP Dola Sen, ex MP Mamata Bala Thakur, national spokesperson Saket Gokhale and former MLA Lalitesh Tripathi had visited the village and met the next of kin of victims on April 24 and demanded a CBI probe into the gruesome incident.
In the letter signed by all the five members of the fact-finding team, TMC has alleged that despite relatives of survivors suspecting rape along with murder, no FIR to that effect has been registered.
“During our visit, we found out from the surviving member of the victim family that there have been shocking omissions on part of the police during investigation,” the TMC fact finding team has stated in a letter sent to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and tweeted from the party’s official twitter handle. The tweet was re-tweeted by its leaders including national spokesperson Saket Gokhale on Tuesday.
The letter states that that relatives of the victims had stated that the bodies of two of the women victims including a handicapped woman were found without clothes.
“There was also vaginal bleeding on the body of the handicapped woman leading to survivors suspecting that the 2 of their relatives were raped before the murder. The survivors also told us that this fact was repeatedly mentioned by them to the police. However, the FIR registered in the case (FIR no. 0080/2022 at Tharwai Police Station) does not include the rape charge u/s 376 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860,” the letter states.
The letter also stated that this was not an isolated incident and that there had been about 31 murders in the trans-Ganga area of Prayagraj last month.
“Prima facie, based on the statements the survivors of the family made before the delegation, it is clear that the Prayagraj Police has not been carrying out the investigation in a fair and proper manner. The survivors of the family expressed great anguish at the police’s attempt to bury the fact that two of the victims could’ve been raped,” the letter stated. The letter also raised question mark on the Prayagraj police’s ability to conduct a fair investigation. The TMC claimed that family of the victims has sought a CBI probe and has requested a meeting with the NHRC chairman to furnish all the relevant facts, evidence, and statements that has been collected by the party delegation.
The Prayagraj police had so far refrained from adding rape charges in the FIR as the post-mortem examination report indicated “hemorrhagic shock and coma due to ante-mortem head injury” as the cause of death of all five victims. According to SSP (Prayagraj) Ajay Kumar, no evidence of any sexual assault was found in the post-mortem examination. However, the police said that the vaginal swabs and slides of the women victims will be sent to the forensic science lab for further testing.
