Lakhimpur Kheri (Uttar Pradesh): Communal tension prevailed in a village in Lakhimpur Kheri after a 20-year-old woman succumbed to her injuries sustained in an attack on Monday allegedly by two men during a molestation attempt. She died on Friday at her home, police said.
The woman was allegedly attacked by two Muslim youths with sharp-edged weapons for resisting rape. The victim was undergoing treatment at Bijua Community Health Centre (CHC). On Friday, too, the girl along with her mother, went to the Bijua CHC to get medicine. After returning home her condition deteriorated resulting in her death at around 8 pm.
It is alleged that on September 12 when she was alone at home, two youths of the same village started molesting her. When the girl protested, both of the accused beat her. The two youths also allegedly beat her mother when she tried to save the girl. Based on a complaint lodged by the victim's mother, the police registered a non-cognizable offence (NCO). The victim's mother alleged that the police did not register her full complaint in an attempt to save the culprits.
After the victim's death, police added charges of culpable homicide to the original FIR, which was filed after the incident. A police outpost in-charge has also been suspended for not heeding to the family's complaint, in which it had alleged that the woman was molested.
"Section 324 of IPC (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 304 of IPC (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) have been added following the police investigations into the case and girl's death on Friday, and that the two accused have been arrested," Kheri police said in a press statement on Saturday.
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Police said they came to know about the distortion in the FIR after a video of the family members alleging so surfaced on social media. "Through social media on Saturday, it came to their notice that the family members alleged distortion of their complaint, following which the concerned outpost in-charge has been suspended," police said.
They said that the investigation of the case has been assigned to Additional Superintendent of Police Arun Kumar Singh. The mother and the elder brother of the dead girl had on Friday accused two youths of attacking her with a sharp-edged weapon after their molestation attempt. After the incident on September 12, an FIR was filed against the two youths on the complaint of the victim's mother.
The two were booked under sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. Meanwhile, heavy police force has been deployed in the village after the family members and the villagers staged a protest demanding swift justice.
Additional SP Arun Kumar Singh, DSP Gola Rejesh Kumar, and other authorities rushed to the village and pacified the agitating villagers, assuring them of effective action. Authorities after hectic negotiations persuaded the family to allow the body to be taken for post-mortem examination, police said.
