Trigger warning: This article talks about rape and assault.
Even as the outrage over Hathras is yet to die down, a report said that the body of a 17-year-old girl was found in a paddy field in a village in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday.
Hindustan Times reported that additional SP, Ram Sewak Gautam as saying, “The girl was missing since she left home to cut the paddy crop. Later, her body was found lying in the field when family members reached there, searching for her on Wednesday night.”
The report said that according to the police the girl seems to have been strangulated, but refused to shared details on her post-mortem.
The newspaper reported the girl’s family as alleging she was sexually assaulted before being murdered because of the condition of the body when it was found.
Gautam, however, said that this appeared to be a case of murder and an FIR of Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered.
This incident as the probe in the Hathras case is just beginning, with activists and people from the Dalit community highlighting the heinous atrocities Dalit women face on a regular basis.
In the Hathras case, four men of the Thakur community allegedly gangraped a 19-year-old woman, who died two weeks later from the injuries she sustained from the incident.
The police, even in this case, claimed that there was no rape. The Uttar Pradesh government and authorities have received severe criticism after the woman’s body was cremated in a rushed manner, against her family’s wishes.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court pulled up the authorities asking them “What if the girl was from a rich family”.
The family had alleged illegal confinement inside their home by the authorities and said that they feared for their lives.
Read the entire report on Hindustan Times.