Hathras rape case | Allahabad High Court raps UP police, top officials over midnight cremation of teen victim

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The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on October 12 reprimanded the Uttar Pradesh Police for cremating the 19-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, on September 14.

The HC Bench had summoned Uttar Pradesh’s Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Additional Chief Secretary, Director General of Police, the Hathras District Magistrate, and the Superintendent of Police.

The counsel for the Hathras victim’s family has said the Bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Pankaj Mithal asked Prashant Kumar, the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), if he would have let his daughter be cremated in a similar way, reported India Today.

The High Court also asked if the police would have responded in the same manner had the victim belonged to a rich family.

Notably, Hathras DM Praveen Kumar Laxkar has accepted that it was his decision to cremate the Dalit woman’s body in the dead of night and claimed that the decision was taken to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, the Hathras victim’s family has requested the case be transferred out of the state as they do not have faith in the “local authorities”. They have also sought security till the hearing is on and demanded the CBI reports be kept confidential.

The court will be hearing the case again on November 2.