Chitrakoot gangrape: Two UP cops suspended for laxity after 15-year-old victim dies by suicide

Chitrakoot: Two policemen were suspended for laxity on Wednesday following the alleged gangrape and suicide of a 15-year-old Dalit girl, a senior police official said. Chitrakoot Superintendent of Police (SP) Ankit Mittal said prima facie, it seemed that there was laxity in the discharge of duty by Karvi police station SHO Jaishankar Singh and Sub-Inspector Anil Sahu, the in-charge of Sariaya police outpost. “Both of them have been suspended,” he said. The SP said the son of a former village pradhan and his two aides were arrested on Tuesday. He also said that on Tuesday night, IG Chitrakoot range K Satyanarayan and District Magistrate Sheshmani Pandey met the family of the victim, and assured them of justice. Mittal also said that a heavy police force has been deployed in the village. “The aggrieved family with its consent conducted the last rites of the victim on Wednesday,” the SP said. The Dalit teenager had died suicide on Tuesday by hanging herself in her house in a village in Chitrakoot. After the girl’s death, her family members alleged that she was raped by three men in a forest area on 8 October, the officer said. On the basis of a complaint from the victim’s family members, former village head’s son Kishan Upadhyay and two others – Ashish and Satish – were arrested under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the SP said. The family members alleged that the girl had died by suicide as her complaint was not registered, a charge denied by the police who said that the victim’s kin had not given any application to lodge an FIR. The SP on Tuesday said the post-mortem examination did not confirm rape and the samples would now be sent to a Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL). The victim’s father alleged that after raping his daughter, the accused left her with her hands and legs tied and the police brought her back, but did not register an FIR. This case comes close on the heels of a 19-year-old Dalit woman succumbing to a Delhi hospital after allegedly being raped by four upper-caste men in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, triggering a nationwide outrage. A collection of Suicide prevention helpline numbers is available  here. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is in need of support. The All-India helpline number is: 022 2754 6669. Connecting Trust distress helpline: 9922004305, 9922001122 and distress email is: distressmailsconnecting@gmail.com