AGRA: Strongly denying any hand in the murder of his sister, the Hathras gang rape victim’s brother is learnt to have told the CBI that if he had done so, he wouldn’t have gone to the police station to lodge a complaint about it. He is also said to have told them if he had to kill his sister, he would have done it at home and not in open fields. The brother made the disclosures of his questioning by the CBI to a delegation of 11-member of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Wednesday.
When contacted, the victim’s younger brother told TOI that these rumours are "deliberately being generated by local residents in a bid to save the accused". “No altercation ever happened among us siblings,” he said. According to the victim’s elder brother, the CBI officials questioned him about the claims being made by local residents that he killed his own sister. “But what about the victim’s statement,” he asked.
Seema Azad, a senior woman activist of PUCL who interacted with the victim’s women relatives, told TOI that the family has no faith in the CBI. She said that the victim’s kin feel the way the investigation agency is questioning the family indicates that their focus is on “honor killing”.
The woman activist said that the family has objections over the line of investigations taken by the CBI.
Azad said, “The family told us that the officials are questioning the relatives about the victim’s character. They approached the family of the victim’s sister-in-law and also her sisters’ in-laws to know about the girl’s character.”
In fact, the victim’s relatives told the human rights organisation members that the officials are allegedly putting words that suit them into their mouth and are allegedly trying to pin the blame on them.
PUCL’s secretary of Allahabad district, Manish Sinha, who was also part of the delegation said the victim’s kin had resented the CBI repeatedly questioning them in a way that they killed their daughter.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)