Tension mounted in Meerut city on Friday after police brutally lathicharged a group of people including parents who were staging a dharna outside the SSP’s office seeking audience with him or any other senior official to have the gang rape clause included in the murder charges framed against the perpetrators of the crime on a minor girl of the same community on Tuesday.
The 17-year-old girl allegedly committed suicide the same day in her Lakhipura residence under Lisadigate police station. The police were informed and the body was buried the same evening with the permission of the cops.
The residents however began to gather and raised slogans against the police after the family learnt after the burial that the FIR of the father was registered under section 302 (murder) and did not include the rape clause.
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What left the family feels left out was the fact that the police picked up two persons named in the FIR but let them off for want of evidence of rape.
“Instead of allowing us to meet the SSP or any other gazetted officer the policemen on sentry duty suddenly attacked all the men and women sitting peacefully on a dharna,” the victim’s father said wondering if this was the justice talked about by the DGP A.L. Banerjee and Principal Secretary ( Home) Deepak Singhal at the divisional crime review meeting and janata darbar at the police lines here on Thursday.
Acting swiftly after the lathicharge that drew flak from all quarters, senior officers ensured the immediate arrest of all the seven named in the FIR by the girl’s father on June 3.
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It may be mentioned that the girl was gang-raped on June 3 by seven members of her own community.
The body was buried the same day. The family however cried foul when the police did not book the culprits under the rape law. As tempers of the family and neighbours rose, the SDM arrived and the matter was controlled after he ordered exhuming of the body. The body was again laid to rest after the post-mortem the next day.