Now, DCW notice to cops over Dalit girl's death in city

New Delhi: Two days after the alleged rape and murder of a 9-year-old Dalit girl and her purported forced cremation by a priest and his three other accomplices without her family's consent at Northwest Delhi's Old Nangal area, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has taken cognisance of the issue and instituted an inquiry into the matter while calling for an action taken report from the area DCP.

In the summons to the area DCP, the Commission has said that it has immediately sent a team to the Police Station and assisted the family, who are engaged in ragpicking, in filing an FIR in the matter wherein they alleged that their daughter had gone out and was brought home dead by a local "pujari".

The FIR in the matter was initially registered under sections 304 (causing death by negligence), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 34 (act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), while later sections of the SC/ST Act and POCSO Act were added.

Those arrested include priest Radhe Shyam (55) and his employees namely Salim, Laxmi Narayan and Kuldeep. Police have recorded the statements of both the mother and father and an ACP rank officer has been appointed as the investigating officer (IO) of the case.

Near their home in Old Nangal, where several people staged a protest on Tuesday, including Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekhar Azad. Demanding strict action against the four accused persons, the victim's mother, Sunita Devi, said that her daughter's killer should be hanged to death for the crime that they have committed.

Devi also alleged that she and her husband were threatened by several persons who asked her to take the complaint back.

She also said that some of her relatives somehow managed to retrieve some of the girl's body parts from the ashes, which now have been sent for postmortem. "The priest and his supporters are claiming that my daughter has been electrocuted but I know that she has been raped," she further alleged.

As per police, the mother told them that the 9-year-old had gone to fetch water from a crematorium opposite their house following which she was told by the priest that her daughter was allegedly electrocuted while fetching water but also pressured her not to go to the cops.

Significantly, Ajit Pal, the family's neighbour, alleged that the four accused were well-known "bad characters" of the area and said that they were involved in past incidents of molestation at the crematorium too.

"In the past two months, there have been such incidents where girls from our village have been harassed and it always involves these four", he said. The minor girl was also harassed several times before by them, who either told her to massage their legs or back, Pal added.

"They were under the influence of alcohol when some of us residents caught them while they were trying to flee," he further said, sitting at the protest site. Pal said that he and his other community members will continue to hold overnight protests demanding justice for their daughter.