Left parties joint delegation meets Hathras victim's family, demands SC-monitored independent inquiry

By Joymala Bagchi
Hathras (Uttar Pradesh) [India], October 6 : A joint delegation of Left-wing parties after visiting the Hathras victim's family on Tuesday raised the demand for Supreme Court-monitored independent judicial inquiry and also requested the Uttar Pradesh government to not try to divert from the principal issue.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) general secretary, Sitaram Yechury, Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary, D Raja, and CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat, Amarjit Kaur, and others met the family today at their home in Hathras.
"We have come here to stand by the victim's family and assured them justice. We want an independent judicial inquiry, and not from any government agency. What the constitution of India guarantees has been brazenly violated," Yechury said, after meeting the victim's family.
"All efforts are being made to try and divert the whole attention into making it some sort of caste conflict, all these are secondary. The principal issue is justice," he added.
Meanwhile, speaking about the issue D Raja said, "This family, like any other Dalit family in the country, does not want sympathy, they want justice. We want SC-monitored judicial inquiry. This is a fight for defending human rights. Dalits are not treated as human beings."
The delegation asserted that ensuring justice is delivered in the matter wouldn't lead to defamation for anyone, including the state government.
The Opposition stressed upon the need for conducting an independent judicial inquiry to find the culprits. They said that pieces of evidence should be collected, and the action should be taken at the earliest, and further urged the government not to delay the deliverance of justice under any pretexts.
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government has already accepted the demand for providing security raised by the victim's family.
The police department deployed round-the-clock security outside the house of the Hathras victim, apart from personal security personnel to some finally members including the victim's brother, on Monday.
On October 2, the Uttar Pradesh government had suspended the then SP, DSP, an inspector and some other officials on the basis of the first report of a Special Investigation Team probing the matter, even as it handed over the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The 19-year-old Hathras woman succumbed to brutal assault injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital last month. The post-mortem report said that the victim suffered a fracture of "cervical vertebra".
Amid enormous outrage by the opposition parties and civil society since the teen's death on September 29, social media too erupted in protests after a video, purportedly showing the administration cremating the body without the presence of family members, went viral.