The family of a 19-year-old woman in India accused police of forcibly cremating her body after she died of rape.
The victim was allegedly raped by four men on September 14 in Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India. She died in a hospital in New Delhi two weeks later. They were Dalit, a marginalized caste in India that was historically known as “inviolable”.
The Indian press and social media have reported extensively on details of the injuries to women, which have drawn new attention to the country’s ubiquitous rape culture, particularly against Dalit women.
Before she died, the woman named four men from her village as her rapists. All four men were reportedly arrested on September 27.
In the early hours of September 30th, the New Delhi woman’s body was brought back to her village. Her family claims police refused to surrender her body for final rites and instead violently – and hastily – cremated her in the middle of the night.
The woman’s brother gave an interview with the Indian Express at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday. “It appears that my sister was cremated; The police tell us nothing, “said the brother to the express.” We asked them to have us bring their body inside one last time, but they didn’t listen to us. “
Video footage from the cremation site, which went viral on Twitter, shows a lonely pyre burning in the dark with no family members around as police officers push reporters away from the scene.
Hathras City Police did not respond to calls from BuzzFeed News. In a tweet on Wednesday, the department said members of the woman’s family were present at the cremation site.
The terrible incident outraged the Indians. Activists and students gathered to protest police actions in New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, and opposition party leaders called for the resignation of Uttar Pradesh’s prime minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reportedly asked the state to ensure that “the strictest measures” are taken against the rapists of the woman.
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