The Uttar Pradesh Police said on Thursday, 15 September, that the two Dalit sisters who were found hanging from a tree in a sugar cane field in the Lakhimpur Kheri district died due to asphyxia, or suffocation.
The police also said that the post-mortem confirmed that the minor girls had been raped and murdered.
"Death (occurred) due to asphyxia as a result of ante mortem strangulation," the Superintendent of Police Sanjiv Suman said while addressing a press conference.
The minor girls were found dead around one kilometre away from their house in the Nighasan area of the district on Wednesday.
Six accused were taken into custody and were interrogated by the police, after which they were remanded to 14-day judicial custody and brought back to Lakhimpur Kheri district jail.
The victims' mother alleged that the perpetrators kidnapped them on a motorcycle, raped them, killed them, and then hung their bodies from the tree.
She further alleged that three motorcycle-borne, unidentified youths, along with her neighbour Chotu, stormed her hutment and abducted her daughters.
When she resisted, one of them kicked her and took the girls on a motorcycle towards the fields outside the village, the victims' mother alleged.
The family later found the girls' bodies hanging from a tree in a field a few hundred metres from their village, she added. Her claims have been corroborated by the police.
'Police Didn't Act on Our Complaint, Conducted Post-Mortem Without Consent'
The victims' mother, however, claimed that the police did not take any action on their complaint and that the post-mortem was conducted without their permission.
She also demanded compensation worth Rs 16 lakh, financial support under the Rani Lakshmibai Scheme, a house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, a government job and strict action against the culprits, including death penalty, from a fast-track court.
An FIR has been registered against four of the accused under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections pertaining to murder and rape, and also under the stringent Protection of Children From Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
Meanwhile, the local administration said that the victims' kin had agreed to conduct their last rites after the state government assured financial assistance and trial of the case in a fast-track court, ANI reported.
Strangulated, Then Hung: Police
According to the police, a man named Chotu, who lived near the girls' house, introduced them to three of his acquaintances – Junaid, Suhail, and Hafizul. On the pretext of friendship, the sisters were lured into the fields and allegedly raped by Sohail and Junaid.
When the girls insisted on getting married, the trio allegedly strangulated and killed them. They then called two other acquaintances, Karimuddin and Arif, to eliminate the evidence by making it appear that the girls had hanged themselves, police said.
Junaid was arrested following an encounter at around 8.30 am on Thursday, the police said.
The police have seized a countrymade pistol and ammunition from him. The motorcycle used in the crime was also recovered.
Village residents held a demonstration on Wednesday night at Nighasan Cross to protest the alleged killings. Police personnel were deployed in large numbers to ensure law and order.
‘Heinous Repetition of the Hathras Incident'
Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party chief, Akhilesh Yadav, condemned the incident on social media and alleged that, according to the girls' father, the post-mortem was done without consent.
"After farmers in Lakhimpur, the killing of Dalits is now a heinous repetition of the 'Hathras ki Beti' incident," he wrote.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called the incident "heartbreaking" and accused the government of being asleep at the wheel.
"Family says the girls were abducted in broad daylight." she wrote.
On 14 September 2020, four upper caste men had gang-raped a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district. She died two weeks later in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.
Her family members had alleged that they were forced by the local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites. Local police officers, however, had said that the cremation was carried out "according to the wishes of the family."
(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)
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