4 linked to farm group booked for rape

ROHTAK: Six people were booked on Sunday in connection with the rape of a 25-year-old woman from West Bengal, who later died of Covid-19 at a private hospital in Jhajjar’s Bahadurgarh, the police said.

According to a complaint lodged by the victim’s father at Bahadurgarh police station, the accused worked with ‘Kisan social army’, the IT cell of a farmer group protesting against the three central farm laws passed in September last year. “I was pressurised that if I wanted to take my daughter’s body, I would have to give a statement that she died of Covid,” the deceased’s father said in his FIR.

“The victim came to Tikri from West Bengal on April 11 to join the protest. On April 25, she was admitted to a private hospital in Bahadurgarh after her condition worsened. The doctors found infection in her lungs and she later tested positive (for Covid-19). She breathed her last in the hospital on April 30. The charges are serious against the four farm leaders and two women volunteers, who are quite active in the farm agitation,” SHO Vijay Kumar said.

The accused, meanwhile, alleged that the victim died of Covid 10 days ago and the police are trying to frame them in a fake case. “The police are trying to defame us and we are ready to face the probe,” one of the accused said. The Samyukt Kisan morcha (SKM) said: “This social media handle (Kisan social army) was never part of our farm agitation... we are standing by them in this fight.”