Hathras SIT Completes Probe, May Submit Report Soon

The SIT was set up to investigate the alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh.

Hathras’ Bulgarhi village.

(Photo: IANS)

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the alleged gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Hathras district has completed its investigation and may soon submit its report to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

An SIT member said that though the investigations had been completed, the panel will need time to prepare an exhaustive report.

The SIT was set up on 30 September 2020 and initially given seven days to probe the Hathras case, but given 10-day extension on its request. The 10-day extension expires on Saturday.

The SIT members – Home Secretary Bhagwan Swaroop, IG Chandra Prakash and SP Poonam – are still in Hathras even as the CBI took over the case and begun its own investigations.

The SIT and CBI have questioned the the families of the victim as well as the accused, apart from recording the statements of villagers, police officials and hospital staff where the victim was taken for treatment. The Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped and strangulated in a millet field in Boolgarhi village on 14 September 2020. She was admitted at the Hathras district hospital and then shifted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital in Aligarh Muslim University.

As her condition deteriorated, she was shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi where she died on 29 September, 2020. Her body was taken back to Boolgarhi in the wee hours of 30 September and cremated allegedly without the family's consent.