Two people have been arrested in an alleged gang-rape and murder case of a 50-year-old woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district, police said on Wednesday. Sankalp Sharma, senior superintendent of police, Badaun said a reward of Rs 25,000 was also announced on the absconding accused.
“An FIR was registered at Ughaiti police station under 376 (d) and 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Three persons were named in the FIR. Two of them have been arrested. One accused is absconding and four teams have been constituted to nab him. A cash reward of Rs 25,000 has been announced on the accused. He will also be arrested soon. I have inspected the incident site as well,” Sharma told reporters.
He also added that disciplinary action was being taken against local policemen for negligence. “The preliminary inquiry has found that the local police station in-charge was negligent in handling the case. I have ordered his suspension,” Sharma said.
Autopsy reports revealed injuries to the woman’s private parts. “The post-mortem reports show minor injuries to private parts, there are tears and she has a fracture on one of her legs. There was excessive bleeding and the bleeding led to shock
and that led to the patient’s death. Prima facie we found evidence of rape,” Dr Yashpal Singh, Chief Medical Officer, Budaun, said.
A video of the accused occultist had emerged on Monday, in which he claimed the woman fell into a well near the place of worship and that he and others rescued her. “I brought two men to rescue her. We took her out of the well. She was alive. When we dropped her home, she was alive,” he claimed in the video.
“They (accused) brought her on their own in a vehicle. She was dead when they left her here. The occultist and others dropped her at the door and left quickly,” the woman’s son said in an interview to the local media on Monday afternoon, adding, that the woman used to go to the place of worship regularly. “On Sunday, she had left home around 5 pm and the men brought her back around 11:30 pm,” her son is heard saying in the interview.
Photographs and videos show the victim’s body laid out on a cot, surrounded by family members and other villagers. A yellow sheet covering her lower body appears to be soaked in blood and one of her legs appears broken.
National Commission for Women (NCW) chief Rekha Sharma said that a team have been sent to the district to take stock of the situation. “We have taken cognisance of the matter. One NCW member is going to the spot to investigate the matter to meet the family and the police and take an exact stock of the situation,” Ms Sharma was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The incident comes months after a Dalit woman from Hathras died days after she was allegedly assaulted by four so-called upper caste men in her village. The case had evoked a massive outrage, primarily because of police’s mishandling of the case, especially the move to cremate the victim’s body at 2 am.