Image Courtesy: newindianexpress.com/
The postmortem report of the bodies of the two Dalit sisters who were found dead in a Lakhimpur Kheri village on Wednesday, confirms their family’s suspicion that they were sexually assaulted before being killed, reported News 18. The channel said, that the autopsy report accessed by it “confirms rape and strangulation of victims.” The Scroll reports that according to the postmortem report, the sisters died “due to asphyxia as a result of antemortem strangulation.”
The sisters’ bodies had been discovered hanging from a tree on Wednesday. The girls were minors aged 15 and 17. Their parents had alleged that they had been abducted and raped before murder. Indian Express had quoted their mother as saying, “I went inside the house for some work. On return, I saw three youths forcibly taking away my daughters on a motorcycle. I ran after the motorcycle but failed to catch them.” A local villager discovered the bodies hanging from a tree in a sugarcane field in Tamoleen Purva village, located about half a kilometer from their home.
Villagers had also held a protest on Wednesday evening in the Nighasen area after the bodies were discovered. The case brought back memories of both, the Hathras case where a Dalit teenager was raped in a field, and the 2014 Badaun case where bodies of two Dalit girls were discovered hanging from a tree.
So far, six persons have been arrested. Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Suman revealed their names at a press conference on Thursday evening – Chotu, Junaid, Sohail, Hafizul, Karimuddin and Arif. According to India Today, the accused have been booked under IPC sections 302 (murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 452 (house trespass for assault), 376 (rape) and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act. India Today reports that five out of the six were remanded to 14 days judicial custody on Friday. Junaid, who had tried to escape and was caught after being shot in the leg by the police, will be presented before the court later.
NDTV reported that according to the police, Chotu was not involved directly in the crime, but was their neighbour and had introduced the girls to the assailants. But the police have contradicted the family’s abduction claims and say that the girls went willingly with Sohail and Junaid, who then sexually assaulted them in the sugarcane field. The publication quoted the SP as saying, “The girls were raped in the fields. When they insisted that the men marry them, the men strangled them with their dupattas.” Hafizul allegedly helped strangle and kill the girls. “Then they called Karimuddin and Arif for help with covering up the crime. They hung the bodies from the tree to make it look like suicide,” he added.
News 18 reports that the bodies of the girls were buried in a field near their home late on Thursday evening as the community does not cremate minors. The family members had initially refused to perform their last rites until their demands of a compensation of Rs 1 crore, a government job for the girls’ brother, and death penalty for the accused, were fulfilled. The family has been assured of a trial in a fast-track court.
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Lakhimpur Kheri: Bodies of two sisters found hanging from a tree