Uttar Pradesh

Ground Report by The Womb Editor Kashish Singh

Written by Parika Singh

Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh witnessed a chilling site as two young girls were found dead, hanging from a tree the morning after Janmashthmi. Belonging to the Dalit community in Bhagautipur, close friends and neighbours aged 15 and 18 years went missing from their homes on Monday after coming back from the celebrations at their village temple.

While SP (Superintendent of Police) Alok Priyadarshi and ASP (Additional Superintendent of Police) Sanjay Kumar have declared it a case of suicide, the family of the girls alleged they were raped and then murdered.

In an exclusive interview, speaking to ‘The Womb’ Editor Kashish Singh, a relative declared, “They were akin to my granddaughter… The girls never wander off. They have been killed and hung.”

Both the girls reportedly left for the temple at night but came back a little later and slept in an adjoining room in one of the houses. When the room was found empty around 10 PM, they were searched around the village by the family members but were not discovered until the next morning in a remote field, hanging on a tree generally avoided by the villagers. The police officers were quick to declare this a case of suicide and give a clean chit after the Post-Mortem report, a copy of which has neither been given to the family members at the time of reporting, nor been placed in the public domain. The story on the ground, however, is shockingly different.

In a devastating turn of events, eerily similar to Hathras, ‘The Womb’ uncovered that the families were not allowed to go near them to see their daughters until they were brought back after postmortem. The police did not provide the PM report to either family but orally informed them nothing was discovered in it. Only when the village women changed their clothes for the last rites, that they saw their mutilated bodies closely.

The mother of one of the girls and close aids around her described belt marks on the waist, hips and breast of one girl while the other sported wounds from a stick on her back and hips and their bodies also bore nail impressions. Women who are neighbours also said and the family confirmed that there were many thorns in the hairs of the girls.

One relative also revealed – “There were stiches on her vagina. They open up the body in postmortem but normally there are no stiches on vaginas. And this girl who is 15 years old has stiches there…they were killed because they would have opened their mouths if they were alive”.

But their trauma did not end there.

After looking at their bodies, the families refused to take them for cremation without further investigation and took photos of their bodies in their mobile phones. The villagers further reported that the girl with the heavier weight was hanging higher up than the other girl and they also noticed an absence of foot imprints on the ground directly below them, which strengthened their suspicions of foul play.

A village woman described, “Their tongues were not hanging out but the nose was bleeding and there were no traces of their feet on the ground”.

However, the police officers present began convincing them to let go of the bodies, reportedly to continue the investigation after the cremation.

The Womb was told when the brother of one of the victims refused to send off the body, that the police began shouting at them, and all the personnel gathered together to prevent the families from performing their rites and forcibly took the bodies away. The bodies were then taken to Atena, 14-15 kms away, and hurriedly cremated in the absence of her loved ones, as seen by a local there. The car of the SDM (Sub-Divisional Magistrate) was also present along with the entire police and bureaucratic cohort, the local reported.

It has only been a while since Hathras’ memory and the UP police and state authorities are once again involved in covering up brutal crimes against Dalit women in the state. The heartbroken fathers do not have a suspect in mind at the moment, but they, along with the gathered villagers, firmly refute the possibility of suicide.

“This was murder”, the family members told The Womb. “We should get justice. We want a fair investigation, right or wrong, call it as it is”. One of the family member also shared that he was informed by the police that they have arrested someone connected with the crime but the villagers have no other information.

As they grieve this unimaginable loss, serious questions arise on the motives of police and the Uttar Pradesh state government behind this gross injustice, mistreatment and sheer apathy.