Protests are ongoing in the Capital of India, Delhi, over the alleged gang rape, murder and forced cremation of a nine-year-old girl.
The girl’s parents have accused a Hindu priest and three others of attacking her when she had gone to fetch drinking water from the crematorium’s cooler. Her mother said the gates were shut and she was threatened when she objected to her daughter’s cremation.
The girl’s parents are Dalits, known formerly as “untouchables” who make a living by begging outside a Sufi Muslim shrine located just across from the cremation ground in Delhi’s Nangal area.
The girl was their only child.
Speaking to some sources, her mother said on Sunday evening, she had sent her daughter to fetch water from the crematorium, just a few metres away from where they live.
“When she didn’t return for over an hour, I went searching for her. At the crematorium, I found her lying on the ground. Her lips were blue, there was blood under her nose, she had bruises on her hands and arms and her clothes were wet.”
She said the priest and the three men warned her not to call the police, saying “they would insist on an autopsy and steal her organs and sell them”.
She said they shut the gates to prevent her from leaving, threatened her and even offered to bribe her.
The child’s father said that by the time he, along with about 150 villagers, reached the crematorium, their daughter’s body was mostly burned.
The villagers said they called the police and drenched the pyre with water, but they could only retrieve her legs, which means a post mortem exam to confirm rape would not be possible.
A senior police official said that based on the information from the parents, a case of gang rape, murder and forced cremation had been registered against the accused.