A part of me died when I read and saw that the dead body of a Dalit girl -resident of a village in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, who succumbed to injuries at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi where she was recuperating after a horrifying and heart-wrenching gang-rape was whisked away by the UP police and cremated in her village in the dead of the night, without the participation of the relatives in the last rites.  The photos and the videos are disturbing and disgusting, but so is India, today.

SHE WAS GANG-RAPED BY FOUR ‘UPPER-CLASS’ MEN  TWO WEEKS AGO  after she was picked up while she was working with her mother in the fields in her village.  After she succumbed to multiple injuries, including a bitten tongue, her body was surreptitiously whisked away from the Safdarjang Hospital in Delhi by the UP Police.  She was fighting for her life there, after having been shifted from a hospital in Aligarh.

Her body was taken to her village, some 200 kilometres away and in the wee hours of the morning she was cremated in the village by a battalion of the UP police, without allowing the wailing mother and other relatives to have a last glimpse of the face of the 17-year-old. The pleading of the women, family members and the Dalit community fell on absolutely deaf ears.

While NDTV and NDTV Hindi reported the incident live even in the dead of the night, the police, the local magistrate had no qualms in carrying on their miscarriage of justice in front of the TV cameras. They were pretty sure that the upper-class oriented Uttar Pradesh government would not only condone their act but maybe even commend them for their “efforts to control law and order.”

The pictures of the wailing mother and other women stopping the Jeep-Ambulance from going to the village cremation grounds had no impact on the police and the administration. The NDTV video shows the police leading the ambulance and cremating the girl, without prayer, without relatives, without any remorse or fear that they were doing it starkly in front of cameras.

After an initial denial of rape and not listening to the tale of woe of the mother of the girl, the Uttar Pradesh police reluctantly arrested the four accused. Dalit bodies, including the Bhim Army and scores of other civil rights bodies and political bodies, have protested all across Uttar Pradesh. Congress leader and Member Parliament Rahul Gandhi has tweeted “A daughter of India is raped, facts are suppressed, and in the end, the right to a funeral is also taken away from her family. It is abusive and unjust.”

World Sikh News expresses deep sympathies with the Dalit family and exhorts all human rights, civil rights and humanitarian agencies and activists to lead for assistance to the family of the deceased.

World Sikh News not only condemns the incident in unequivocal terms but demands justice for the poor Dalit family. The culprits must be brought to quick justice and they should be charged with murder. All police personnel of all ranks and the magistrate involved in the cover-up must be dismissed from service wholesale to set an example.

How can I wish that you Rest in peace?
Do not Rest in Peace Rise, my daughter.
Do not Rest in Peace.
I could not even bid you a farewell.
I could not even hug you that last time.
How can I wish that you Rest in Peace?
So, I shout aloud Do not Rest in Peace
Rise, my daughter, Do not Rest in Peace.

Anonymous

Shamelessness personified. Humanity cries. How did the hospital authorities hand over the dead body to the father or the uncle who was alone and was subjected to visible coercion by the police? Why did nobody from the hospital authorities sound an alert? There are so many questions that no one will answer but they need to be asked.

If justice is not seen to be done, then Nirbhayas will keep happening. Who knows how many are there who even go unreported?

If justice is not seen to be done, then Nirbhayas will keep happening. Who knows how many are there who even go unreported?

ये सब सिर्फ़ दलितों को दबाकर उन्हें समाज में उनका ‘स्थान’ दिखाने के लिए UP सरकार की शर्मनाक चाल है।

हमारी लड़ाई इसी घृणित सोच के ख़िलाफ़ है।#HathrasHorrorShocksIndia pic.twitter.com/b6Gym5HbUd

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 30, 2020

No official response from the Uttar Pradesh government, though some TV channels have claimed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has intervened.  It is far too late in the day, but still, WSN appeals that the Nirbhaya Fund set by the government may be put to use to prevent as much as possible such horrific and shameful incidents.

In India today, it is easy for a part of you to die every day. Till when? Nobody knows.