Lakhimpur Kheri rape-murder victim’s eyes weren’t gouged out, tongue not chopped — UP Police

Lakhimpur Kheri ASP says 2 men arrested for rape and murder of 13-yr-old girl Friday are from the same village as the victim, have confessed to crime.

Representational image | ANI

Lucknow: Two persons were arrested Sunday by the Uttar Pradesh Police for the brutal rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Lakhimpur Kheri district Friday.

The post mortem report has confirmed the victim was sexually assaulted, but allegations that the girl’s eyes were gouged out and her tongue chopped off are wrong, according to Additional Superintendent of Police, Lakhimpur Kheri, Arun Kumar Singh.

Singh told ThePrint that the girl sustained an injury just below her eye, possibly due to friction with the sharp leaves of sugarcane in the field where the rape was committed.

He said the arrested men, Sanjay Gautam and Santosh Yadav, both in their early twenties, have confessed to the crime. Both men are residents of the same village as the girl — Pakaria in the Isanagar area.

Sequence of events

The 13-year-old Dalit girl had left her home around 10 am to go to the fields, but when she didn’t return for a while, her family members started looking for her. They found the girl’s body in a sugarcane field on the outskirts of the village, and the local media had reported that both her eyeballs appeared to be ruptured and her tongue looked like it was pierced with a sharp object.

She seemed to have been throttled by a black dupatta.

The condition of the body caused a furore in the village, and the police were informed about the incident. After sending the body for post mortem, the police began questioning people around the scene of the crime, which eventually led them to the two accused men.

ASP Singh said they have been booked under Sections 302 (murder) and 376 (d) (gang rape) of the Indian Penal Code on the basis of complaint filed by the victim’s father, and that they will be charged under the stringent National Security Act (NSA).

Opposition calls it ‘jungle raj’

UP Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu has labelled the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh as ‘jungle raj’, alleging an “unholy nexus” between criminals and the police. He said people of the state, especially women, are being traumatised by the attitude of the criminals and the police, and the incident in Lakhimpur Kheri has shamed the entire state.

Former CM and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav tweeted with the hashtag #NomoreBJP, saying this ruthless killing of a helpless teenager after being brutally raped is a jolt for humankind, and alleging that the persecution of girls and women has hit extremes under the BJP regime in UP.

However, UP BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi responded: “The main accused have been arrested, the police have done their job. Strict action will be taken against the accused. The opposition allegations of ‘jungle raj’ are baseless. the BJP government has always taken strict action against all criminals.”