Five arrested in rape and murder of girls in Uttat Pradesh

(Vatican Radio) The police this morning  arrested the fifth man accused in the gangrape and murder of two Dalit sisters in Western Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district.

Listen to Carol Andrade's report...

The girls, aged 14 and 15 years were cousins, and had gone out on Tuesday night to relieve themselves in the fields near their home under cover of darkness. Their bodies were found hanging the next morning from a mango tree in the village. Autopsies indicate that they may have strangled to death.

A newspaper reported that an uncle of the girls had gone out looking for them and actually saw some of the accused men whom he recognized, dragging the girls away by their hair. He was threatened with a revolver and fled for his life. Their families went to the local police station to ask the constables on duty for help. They did not get it, allegedly because the rapists and they share the same caste, which is also the caste of the chief minister. All are Yadavs. The victims are lower castes traditionally vulnerable to sexual attacks .

Of the five men arrested, two are policemen. One of them is part of the main gang of culprits, the other has been accused of conspiracy to hide evidence and failure to take action. Another two men are still being sought.

Giving in to demands and protests, the chief minister of UP, India’s most populous state, has announced the case will be handled by a fast track court and that the Central Bureau of Investigation will look into it. This is because the families of the girls have declared in unequivocal  terms that they have no confidence in the caste-ridden state police. Hoping to placate them, the chief minister announced compensation to each family of Rs 500,000, but this has cut no ice.

This morning, among those who visited the families was Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who said that justice, not compensation, was what was required.  Ironically, he is one of the very few members of parliament from the Congress that UP  is sending to Delhi. Out of 80 MPs who represent the state, 72 are from the BJP. Rahul Gandhi was elected, so was his mother Sonia Gandhi. But the biggest representative from UP far out-shadows even these two. He is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, in whose name the BJP has won a landslide victory.

The people’s hopes are invested heavily in him this time. Some things on their wishlist are heart-breakingly simple to implement – enough toilets built for women so that going to the bathroom is not a life and death matter. As it was for the two young girls from Badaun.