Hathras, Sep 30 (UNI) Family members of the 19-year-old Dalit girl, who was raped and murdered by four men, was forcefully cremated by police without the consent of them.
The cremation was done at around 0315 hours amid protest by the family members and the villagers. It was also alleged that no family members were present during the time of the cremation.
The father of the victim alleged that the authorities did not allow to fulfil the last wish of his daughter.
"My daughter said she wanted to come home. She succumbed to her injuries but we could not fulfil her last wish due to adamant attitude of the authorities," the tearful father said.
The brother added that the authorities were in hurry and they wanted to do the cremation without my father, who reached the village well after the body.
“It appears that my sister has been cremated as the police are not telling us anything. We begged them to let us bring her body inside the house one last time, but they didn’t listen to us,” the victim's brother Sandeep told reporter here on Wednesday early morning.
He said that the ambulance, which brought the body from Safdarganj hospital in Delhi, was kept on the main road and police did not allow them to take the body inside the house.
"The authorities had switched on the lights of the cremation ground and forced us to perform her last rites. We don’t want to cremate her in the middle of the night, we want to take her home," Sandeep alleged.
Several videos also showed the victim’s mother pleading with police officials to let the body be brought home one last time.
However, district authorities claimed that the cremation was done as per the wish of the family members.
Mr Prem Prakash Meena, the Joint Magistrate told reporters here that the last rites of the victim have been performed.
"Police and administration will ensure that the perpetrators of the crime are brought to justice," he said.
However, at 0216 hrs, the Hathras Police had tweeted that the cremation will be done “as per the wishes of the family”.
The swift action of the authorities to cremate the body was due to the opposition protest in the country and if the body was taken to their house, then the cremation would have been possible only this morning.
The district authorities have claimed that the family of the victim joined the cremation and even her father and other relatives put a log on the pyre.
They also released a video about their claim.
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