Uttar Pradesh: A 19-year-old Dalit rape victim, who was gang raped and left paralysed by four upper caste men, died a fortnight after the attack in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday. She was shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital in the national capital on Monday evening after her condition deteriorated.
On September 14, the Dalit rape victim was dragged by the dupatta around her neck to a field when she had gone to collect cattle fodder, which injured her spinal cord. When rape victim was held down, she apparently bit her own tongue which caused a deep cut.
Fakhrul Hoda, head of neurosurgery at the Aligarh hospital where she was being treated, told reporters that “Surgery to fix her spine could only have been done after her condition improved. The damage to the spinal cord appeared to be permanent.”
The victim, youngest of five siblings, was on life support for some time. The girl was referred to Delhi on Monday on her father’s request. Her brother accompanied her to Delhi.
A week after she was hospitalised, the dalit gang rape victim told the police that she had been raped by four men whom she also named.
All four accused she named — Sandip, Ramu, Lavkush and Ravi — were arrested for gang rape, attempt to murder and under sections of the SC/ST Act.
The dalit rape victim’s family was threatened to speak against the upper caste accused
Her father had told reporters on Sunday that the families of the four accused have been threatening them for speaking out. The girl had also told her family that the four men had threatened her with dire consequences if she informed anyone about the incident.
The Dalit rape case: Cong says law and order has collapsed in UP
The opposition Congress alleged that law and order had collapsed in Uttar Pradesh as the Yogi Adityanath government had “failed to protect women” in the state. The statement came after a Dalit gang rape victim from Hathras passed away in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday.
Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi alleged that “Law and order had collapsed in the state and there was no protection to women, even as criminals are roaming freely in Uttar Pradesh.”
She said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was answerable for the safety of women in the state.
The Congress leader also questioned the “silence” of BJP women leaders, saying why were they not stepping forward to ensure justice for the 19-year-old victim.
She demanded exemplary punishment for the culprits to ensure quick justice to the bereaved family.
VHP demands death sentence for the dalit gang rape culprits
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Tuesday demanded the death sentence for the culprits in the gang-rape of a Dalit young woman in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh after she died in a Delhi hospital earlier in the day.
Dubbing the crime “shocking”, the VHP said: “It is a blot on humanity and shameful for all of us. We demand death sentence for the guilty.”
The VHP also demanded compensation and security to the 19-year-old victim’s family. It said that it must be ensured that such crimes did not occur in the future.