‘Couldn’t even see her face before cremation’: Hathras gang-rape victim’s kin

The victim’s family spoke to media after two days, said they want justice and not money.

Journalists were finally allowed to enter the Hathras gang-rape victim’s village, Boolgarhi, and interacted with her family members after at least two days during which the village had remained out of bounds for reporters and politicians.

Police resort to lathicharge to disperse Congress workers from DND Flyway while a delegation led by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi makes its way towards Hathras, Uttar Pradesh.(Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times)

The family members of the woman alleged they were pressured, especially the father, who said with tears, that he was not sure if the body that was cremated was his daughter’s. The alleged forcible cremation of the victim’s body in the dead of night has added to the national outrage over the alleged gang-rape and brutalisation that led to the woman’s death.

Further alleging that they “couldn’t even see her face before the cremation”, the family said they wanted justice and not money. The state government has already announced Rs 25 lakh ex gratia, a job for a family member and a house for the family of the victim.

“We requested not to conduct the cremation at night, but no heed was paid. In fact, we do not know if it was our daughter’s body,” they said.

“The village and our house were heavily guarded by the police. We want justice, not money. It was totally unjustified to deny a respectful cremation. We asked for cremation in the daytime, but it was done at night forcibly,” the victim’s mother said.

“We lay down in front of the ambulance, but we were removed and the cremation was done by force at night,” the family alleged.

The victim’s mother denied undergoing a narco-analysis test. She also denied having asked for a CBI inquiry into the case.

Journalists had been kept out of the village for the last two days as the authorities said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was conducting the probe.

Meanwhile, Hathras subdivisional magistrate (SDM) Prem Prakash Meena said section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code was still in force in the village prohibiting the assembly of four people or more.

“The video of the DM (district magistrate) going viral is fake and edited” he added.

The Dalit woman was allegedly raped by four dominant caste men earlier this month. The victim was admitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of Aligarh Muslim University after she was left partially paralysed. She was later moved to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi where she died on Tuesday.