Hathras victim was raped, murdered, CBI files in chargesheet

The CBI filed the chargesheet before a special SC/ST court in Hathras, some 200 kms from Delhi. The central investigative agency has also invoked charges against the accused under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, reported NDTV.

The young woman from Dalit community was raped and tortured by the four men of the so called upper caste community on September 14 and died two weeks later at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.

The girl was left paralysed with a spinal cord injury caused by the accused while her tongue was found cut.

The four upper caste men Sandeep, Luvkush, Ravi and Ramu, who are in judicial custody now, have been charged by the CBI in the gang rape and murder of the victim, said an HT report, adding that the lawyer for the accused, Munna Singh Pundir, said the court has taken cognisance of the chargesheet.

The Uttar Pradesh BJP government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had come under fierce criticism for the handling of the incident and the unceremonious cremation of the victim in the dead of the night without the approval or the presence of her family members.

The victim's family members had alleged that the police had ignored their pleas to see her dead body and were forcefully transported from the hospital to the village. They were locked in their house while the police allegedly "cremated her body like garbage", in an act that was widely perceived as an attempt to cover up the mishandling of the case by the administration.

Notwithstanding the accusations, the police had claimed that the victim was cremated as per the wishes of the family members, the media had reported.

In October, the Supreme Court had said that the Allahabad High Court will monitor the CBI investigation in the case.

An NDTV report said that an accused had written a letter to Uttar Pradesh police from jail, claiming that he and the three other accused are being framed in the case and the victim was in reality tortured by her mother and brother.

Earlier this week, the CBI had sought more time to conclude its investigation in the case, after which the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had set Januray 27 as the date of hearing as the next date of hearing in the case, the report added.