More outrage, protests after Hathras victim’s cremation | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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More outrage, protests after Hathras victim’s cremation

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Oct 02, 2020 11:06 AM IST

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra demanded the resignation of the chief minister, who said he had formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the September 14 gangrape, in the course of which the woman was brutalised by four men.

The hurried cremation of the Hathras gang-rape victim was meant to suppress protests and chief minister Yogi Adityanath must resign, opposition political readers said on Wednesday, while also demanding the case be shifted outside of Uttar Pradesh.

Members of the Jamat-e-Islami Hind staging a candlelight protest against the Hathras rape case at Esplanade crossing in Kolkata, West Bengal on October 01, 2020.(Samir Jana/HT Photo)
Members of the Jamat-e-Islami Hind staging a candlelight protest against the Hathras rape case at Esplanade crossing in Kolkata, West Bengal on October 01, 2020.(Samir Jana/HT Photo)

The slugfest intensified after the family of the 19-year-old Dalit victim alleged that they had been forced by UP police to perform her last rites in the stealth of the night. The police said they had the consent of the kin.

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Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the people of the country are sad and angry over the gruesome incident and said the “Nirbhaya of Hathras did not die but was killed by a cruel and insensitive government and its administration”.

WATCH: Hathras horror: ‘Cars can overturn in UP’ says BJP leader; Congress slams Yogi

“What kind of justice is this? What kind of a government is this? You think you can do anything and the nation will sit and watch. Never, the nation will speak against your injustice. On behalf of the Congress party, I demand justice for the family. India belongs to everyone. Everyone has the right to live with dignity. The Constitution has given us this right. We will not allow the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] to break the country and violate the Constitution,” the Congress president said in a video message.

Also Read: Resolve the Hathras rape case swiftly

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra demanded the resignation of the chief minister, who said he had formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the September 14 gangrape, in the course of which the woman was brutalised by four men.

Tagging Adityanath, Priyanka Priyanka, who oversees her party’s Uttar Pradesh unit, tweeted: “RESIGN. Instead of protecting the victim and her family, your government became complicit in depriving her of every single human right, even in death. You have no moral right to continue as chief minister.”

In another tweet in Hindi, she alleged that at 2:30 am on Wednesday, UP police forced the family to cremate the body.

“I was on the phone with the Hathras victim’s father when he was informed that his daughter had passed away. I heard him cry out in despair. He had just been telling me that all he wanted was justice for his child. Last night the victim’s father was robbed of the chance to take his daughter home for the last time and perform her last rites,” she wrote.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi joined his sister in attacking the BJP government of Uttar Pradesh. “A daughter of India is raped-murdered, facts are suppressed and in the end, the right to perform the last rites is also taken away from the victim’s family. It is insulting and unjust,” he tweeted in Hindi.

Members of Dalit groups and activists alleged the police was actively prohibiting them from agitation.

“The whole world is watching how the government and the police together cremated our sister in the absence of her family. I have been taken into custody and put under house arrest in Saharanpur; but we will continue to fight,” said Chandrasekhar Azad, chief of the Bhim Army that had led protests outside Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital on Tuesday.

The Samajwadi Party also tried to organise a march to the CM’s residence, but the police stopped the group too with a lathicharge. In New Delhi, around 80 Left activists were detained when they tried to stage a protest outside Uttar Pradesh Bhawan.

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