This is part of a series of articles by Outlook to document past and present cases of rape and sexual assault on women. To read articles from Outlook's 11 September 2024 magazine issue 'Lest We Forget', click here
Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad made headlines last week as two Dalit girls’ bodies were found hanging on a mango tree a day after Janmashtami. The two girls aged 15 and 18 had left their homes the previous night to attend a Janmashtami puja at a local temple and never returned.
The UP police, after discovering the bodies on the morning of August 27 sent them for a postmortem. The results later confirmed the cause of death as suicide. However, the girls’ families have expressed doubts and suspect foul play, according to PTI.
“You have found out that they committed suicide by hanging but the injury marks on their bodies have not been mentioned in your report… This is all fake. All the reports are false,” one of their fathers told PTI Videos.
“They could not have (hanged themselves). Somebody must have murdered (the girls),” he said.
Two youths, one who owns a tailor shop and the other his employee, have been booked under Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita’s Section 108 (abetment of suicide) after a SIM card found in the possession of one of the girls was registered in the name of one of the accused. It has been alleged that the accused had given the sim card to the girl so he could speak to her over the phone.
A report by The Print reveals that the parents of the girls had reported ongoing harassment by the youths. Farrukhabad SP Alok Priyadarshi told The Print that crucial evidence was discovered on the SIM card found at the crime scene. This led to the questioning of the suspects, who confessed to maintaining phone contact with the girls for several months. According to the police, the two accused had recently ended their relationships with the girls, who, devastated by the breakups, subsequently took their own lives.
The families of the girls, who were found hanging by their dupattas, refuse to accept they committed suicide. They claim that the bodies showed signs of injury when discovered and are now demanding a CBI investigation into the case. The families told ANI that the girls' bodies had thorns piercing them and there were belt bruises.
While Farrukhabad MP Mukesh Rajput visited the families to offer condolences and assure them of justice, the Opposition has criticised the ruling BJP for failing to address lawlessness in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state.
Samajwadi Party chief and Kannauj MP Akhilesh Yadav took to X to call out the saffron party on their handling of the case. “The silence of the BJP government in the case of the suspicious death of two girls in Farrukhabad is disturbing. Perhaps there are two reasons for this, one is the BJP's anti-women thinking and attitude and the other is their being Dalits,” his post read.
“The public has no hope left from the BJP government. Whenever the BJP raises women's issues, there is only and only political gain behind it.”
While Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said hoping for justice under BJP rule was a crime. “The incident that happened in Farrukhabad is very unfortunate, such attitude of the administration towards the victim's family cannot be tolerated at any cost.”
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said, “be it Hathras, Unnao or Farrukhabad, the same cruel story is repeated everywhere. So should the Dalits, backward, deprived, poor, women, or whoever is weak, give up hope of justice now?”
