9-Year-Old Girl Gang Raped, Murdered & Cremated
A nine-year-old girl was raped and killed allegedly by a priest and three male employees of a crematorium near Delhi Cantonment area.
In Nangal village of Delhi Cantonment Area a 9-year-old girl told her parents that she wanted to go to the Peer Baba Dargah to play. They, however, asked her to fetch some cold water first from the water cooler at the crematorium, a 5-minute walk from the house. The father dropped the child at the crematorium at 5:30pm and told her, “You can play after we have cold water for dinner.” He then left to buy vegetables, intending to pick the child up on his way back. About half an hour later, the priest Radhe Shyam called the mother, asking her to “come quickly”. On reaching the crematorium, the mother found the child’s lifeless body on the ground. Her lips had turned blue, there were burn marks on her wrists and elbow, and there was blood coming from her nose. According to her, before she realised what was happening, the priest told her: “Your daughter got electrocuted while filling water, hurry up the cremation or the cops will conduct a post mortem and doctors will steal her organs.” The mother said, “I lost my voice. Before I could say anything, the priest and three of his employees started getting logs. They didn’t even ask me for an Aadhaar card or money. They even got the red cloth to wrap her and started cremating her.”
As the pyre burned, the mother called her husband. She started crying loudly and around 200 village people gathered at the spot. The villagers and the father who reached, then extinguished the fire off the body. Of her body, only the child’s legs could be salvaged from the pyre. The family of the girl and the villagers now claim that the girl was gangraped by the priest and his employees and then murdered. A woman neighbour of the girl’s family said, ““We want the strictest punishment for the priest and the three men. If it was a case of electrocution, why did they not inform the police or send the girl’s body to any hospital for autopsy? What was the urgency to cremate the body and that too late in the evening, when no cremation is allowed at the crematorium after 6pm. Why did they do it without the consent of the girl’s parents? We suspect that this is a case of murder after rape.” Initially the police only registered a case of murder. However, there were strong protests by the villagers. Villagers claimed even after telling the police the girl may have been raped the police did nothing. They said it was because the girl was from a Dalit family. After these protests the police have also registered a case of Rape. Police are investigating the matter and forensic evidence has been collected from the crematorium. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has demanded death sentence for the guilty and he would be meeting the victim's family.
