Bihar Dalit teenager dies by suicide after alleged gang rape, file closed

Patna:

Amid a nationwide blackout against the alleged gang rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, a Dalit teenager from Gaya district, Bihar, died on Friday by suicide after being raped by four men, the police told me.

Police say the girl’s parents have filed a gang rape complaint naming three of the four defendants as Rahul Kumar, Chintu Kumar and Chandan Kumar. The fourth accused remains unidentified, police said.

According to sources, the autopsy of the body was performed at Gaya Medical College and the results are awaited.

The case parallels the alleged gang rape of a Dalit woman and the murder committed by four men from a so-called “upper caste” community in the Hathras of Uttar Pradesh.

Hathras’ victim died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday. She had suffered from multiple fractures, paralysis and severe spinal injuries when she was assaulted by four men in her village on September 14. Police said there was a gash in her tongue because she bit it as the men tried to strangle her.

The handling of the case by the Uttar Pradesh police, including the delay in filing a case of rape and cremation to death without the consent or presence of the family, snowballed in a political issue that is likely to cast its shadow over Bihar in three phases. Elections to the Assembly from October 28.

Opposition parties, including Congress and RJD, risk cornering Bihar’s ruling coalition led by Nitish Kumar Yadav for Women’s Safety, Atrocities Against Dalits, The Three Controversial Farm Bills Approved by the president while the opposition continues to farmers still in protest, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and migrant crisis.

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