Boganadi, Assam:
There have been angry protests in Assam over the death of a 30-year-old woman who was allegedly gang-raped in an auto rickshaw and thrown out of it on Friday. The woman died in Guwahati on Sunday.
But now, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who has ordered an inquiry and is "personally monitoring" the situation, has told NDTV that the initial post-mortem report does not indicate rape.
"We have zero tolerance towards crime against women... Have constituted a Special Investigation Team to look into the investigations, hoping investigations would be completed in a month. Would like the case to be taken up by fast track courts," he said.
The police says they are not ruling out murder.
Activists and locals had alleged that the woman was gang-raped by four men and flung out of the auto she had boarded on her way to pick up her six-year-old daughter from school in Boginodi in Lakhimpur district in Assam.
People who saw her fall out of the vehicle took her to a hospital, where she died of her injuries on Sunday.
A hunt is on for the auto-rickshaw driver and other passengers who were traveling in it on Friday, the police said.
Women activists and locals blocked the highway on Monday with the woman's body, demanding arrests and punishment for those responsible. Today, they protested outside a local police station.
"This heinous act reminds us of the Nirbhaya (Delhi gang-rape) episode. A year has not yet passed, and now, a similar incident has happened," said Nirmala Samant, a member of the National Commission for Women, which has sent a notice to the Assam police on the case.
In December last year, a young student was brutally gang-raped in a moving vehicle by six men in Delhi. She died two week later. Four of the men have been given the death sentence by a fast track trial court.