'Allow media and political parties to meet aggrieved family': Uma Bharti urges Yogi Adityanath on Hathras incidents

In a string of tweets, Uma Bharti, who is undergoing treatment for Covid-19, requested Adityanath to lift the siege around the home of the Dalit victim in a village of Hathras district and also criticised the haste with which the young woman was cremated by police in the dead of the night while her family members were locked in their home.

"Dear Yogi Adityanathji, I have been following the Hathras incident on television even if I cannot go out and meet people. At first, I thought that I should not say anything as you must be taking the right action in the matter. However, the manner in which the police has sealed the area and laid a siege around the victim's house, whatever arguments may be given in its favour, the act gives rise to apprehensions," she wrote in Hindi.

"She was the daughter of a Dalit family. First, the police cremated her in haste and now the family and the village are under siege," she criticised.

"I am not aware of any rule which prevents the family members of a victim from meeting anyone because of an ongoing SIT probe. Doing this would cast doubts on the SIT probe itself," she added.

"Just a few days ago we have laid the foundation stone of the Ram Temple and claimed to bring Ram Rajya to the country ahead, but the suspicious act of police, in this case, has maligned the image of your Uttar Pradesh government and BJP," she said.

"You have a clean image. It is my request to you that the media and the political parties are allowed to meet the aggrieved family members," she asserted.

"I am vexed with the developments. Had I not been admitted in the corona ward of AIIMS Hrishikesh, I too would have been sitting with the family members of the victim. After my discharge from AIIMS Hrishikesh, I would meet that aggrieved family," she said.

"I am your senior in BJP and like your elder sister. I urge you to not ignore my request," Bharati added.

The 19-year-old Dalit rape victim died at Delhi's Safdurjung Hospital on Tuesday. She had suffered multiple fractures, paralysis, and severe spinal injury in the sexual assault by four upper-caste men in Boolagarhi village of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh on September 14.

Amid a massive outpour of anger over Uttar Pradesh Police's lackadaisical response and official inertia over the victim's family's pleas, her body was taken away forcibly by the cops.

Her family had begged to take her body to their home and do her last rites the next morning. Instead, they were hustled into an SUV right from the hospital and locked in their home in the village while the state police cremated their daughter at 2.30 am, in an act that is being widely viewed as a desperate attempt to cover up its string of lapses.