BJP veteran Uma Bharti, who is presently receiving treatment for a COVID-19 infection, on Friday, 2 October, in a series of tweets urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to call off the police siege around the home and village of the Dalit woman who died after being gang-raped in UP’s Hathras.
Uma Bharti also, in her tweets, condemned the haste with which the victim was cremated, in the middle of the night, by UP police.
“She was a daughter of a Dalit family. She was cremated by the police in a haste and now the family and the village are under police siege.”Uma Bharti
Bharti, also went on to tweet in Hindi, that at first she had decided to not say anything, because she had thought the UP CM must be taking action in this regard.
“However, the manner in which the police have laid a siege to the village and the victim’s family is concerning no matter what the arguments in its favour may be.”
She further said that she does not know of any rule under which a family can't meet anybody because of a SIT (Special Investigation Team) probe.
“We have just laid the foundation stone of the Ram Temple and have claimed to bring Ram Rajya to the country ahead but due to the suspicious actions of the police on this incident, the image of Uttar Pradesh government and the BJP has been hit.”
She told the UP CM that he has “a very clean image” and requested him to “allow media persons and other political parties to meet the aggrieved family.”
Bharti further said:
“Had I not been coronavirus positive then I too would have been sitting with the family. I will definitely meet them once I am discharged... I am senior to you and like an elder sister. I request you to not ignore my request,”
Background
Meanwhile, a little after Uma Bharti’s tweets, reports came in that the Superintendent and Deputy Superintend of Police in UP’s Hathras have been suspended. According to the UP Chief Minister’s Office, they are also expected to go through a narco-polygraph test.
The body of the 19-year-old Dalit woman who was gang-raped and murdered, allegedly by four upper-caste men in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras village, was reportedly ‘forcibly cremated’ by the Uttar Pradesh Police in the wee hours on Wednesday, 30 September.
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