CBI team visits Hathras, probes crime scene
A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team on Tuesday reached Hathras and examined the site of the September 14 crime where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was brutally gang-raped by four upper caste men, and also quizzed the family of the victim, officials aware of the development said.
The brother of the victim, who died at a hospital in Delhi about two weeks after the incident, accompanied the investigators to the crime scene in Bulgarhi village, police said. Later, the mother and aunt of were called to the spot to narrate their version of events to the CBI team.
The officials directed the local police to cordon off the area, which was virtually a thoroughfare for nearly 29 days since the incident.
When the brother was being taken away by the team, speculation about his arrest started doing the rounds, but CBI Spokesperson RK Gaur said that “no arrest has been made”. The CBI investigators spoke to the family members at their residence in detail about the sequence of events on the day of the crime, officials said.
Before reaching the scene of the crime, the CBI team visited Chandpa police station, under which the village falls, and questioned a policeman associated with the case. “The documents with the investigating officer have been handed over to the CBI,” said Hathras superintendent of police Vineet Jaiswal.
Meanwhile, the CBI has augmented its Hathras team by assigning four more officers under superintendent of police Raghuram Rajan, who is heading the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Ghaziabad. Seema Pahuja, deputy SP from ACB, Chandigarh, has been
appointed as investigation officer of the case.
Additional SP VK Shukla, who has recently completed investigation of Sathankulam custodial death case, has been brought in along with deputy SP RR Tripathi from Anti-Corruption Bureau, Delhi, and inspector S Shreemathy from special crime.
The agency had earlier registered a case against prime accused Sandip Singh and he, along with three others, are in jail. The accused were named by the victim before she succumbed to her injuries on September 29 at a hospital in Delhi, following which the district magistrate ordered cremation in the village in the dead of the night allegedly against the wishes of her family.
The case was referred to the CBI by the state government after a political storm over the alleged apathy of the administration. The Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress and other opposition parties of the state, including the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, staged protests demanding justice for the victim.
The officer concerned of the Uttar Pradesh police had registered a case of attempt to murder on a statement by the brother of the victim who, as per the FIR at Chandpa police station, had said that the accused tried to strangulate his sister in a millet field and escaped when she raised an alarm.
On Monday, the victim’s family appeared before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court in connection with the case. The court condemned the forcible cremation of the woman by the police at 2.30 am on September 30. The case will next be heard on November 2.