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Regular-article-logo Wednesday, 24 April 2024

UP gang-rape victim ends life on 2nd try

She tried to kill herself last year outside CM Adityanath’s official residence, citing police inaction. Nothing changed after that.

Piyush Srivastava Lucknow Published 16.01.19, 09:51 PM
The victim’s suicide — nearly a year after her alleged gang rape in February by two brothers, both influential people in Karnailganj — ended a traumatic and desperate fight for justice

The victim’s suicide — nearly a year after her alleged gang rape in February by two brothers, both influential people in Karnailganj — ended a traumatic and desperate fight for justice (Shutterstock)

A young woman who had attempted suicide last year outside chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s official residence claiming police inaction against her alleged rapists finally ended her life on Monday — at her home.

The 35-year-old’s husband said he returned home in the evening to find his wife hanging from the ceiling.

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“The rapists had continued to harass her and the police were pressing me to reach a compromise. She was fed up and hanged herself from the ceiling after I had stepped out around 6pm,” the husband told reporters in Gonda, 120km from Lucknow, on Tuesday.

As news broke of the woman’s suicide in Karnailganj in Gonda district, the Uttar Pradesh government suspended two policemen who were probing the case and benched another.

“We have suspended Ajit Pratap Singh and Parmanand Tiwari, two police inspectors who were the investigating officers in the case. Ved Prakash Srivastava, station house officer of Karnailganj, has been withdrawn from active duty and sent to the police lines pending an inquiry,” Gonda superintendent of police R.P. Singh said.

The victim’s suicide — nearly a year after her alleged gang rape in February by two brothers, both influential people in Karnailganj — ended a traumatic and desperate fight for justice.

On August 15 last year, she had tried to set herself on fire outside the gates of Adityanath’s official residence in Lucknow.

“She had gone to Lucknow to sit on dharna in front of the Vidhan Sabha to mount pressure on the police. But the policemen there dragged her away. Then she bought kerosene from a vendor and poured it on herself in front of the CM’s residence. But the policemen didn’t let her light a match and sent her back to Gonda, assuring her that Adityanath was at his residence and had assured her protection and action against the rapists,” the husband said.

The abortive, Independence Day suicide attempt had come a week after the police had submitted in court the final report in the case that said it was only a brawl between two individuals.

The husband alleged the police had not taken his wife for a medical examination and submitted a fake medical report in the court to prove that it was not a case of sexual assault.

According to the complaint the victim had filed with the police, her alleged rapists had met her one day early last year and told her that her husband was having an affair with a woman and they could help her separate the two.

“Instead of asking my husband or cross-checking the claim of the two brothers, I agreed for their help. They organised a ritual in their house on February 7, 2018, and thereafter raped me. They also shot the entire incident on a mobile phone and then started traumatising me every day by threatening that they would make the video viral on social media,” the husband quoted from the complaint.

“But the rapists somehow convinced the police that she was an immoral woman,” he said.

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