Two days after a 13-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped by three men in her village in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur, her father died this morning in a road accident outside a hospital where she was taken for medical examination.
The father of two accused in the gang-rape case - Deepu Yadav and Saurabh Yadav - works as a sub-inspector with the Uttar Pradesh Police in the Kannauj district, about 100 km from Kanpur.
While a third accused, Golu Yadav, has been arrested, serious allegations have been levelled by the girl's family against the police. They said the family of the accused had been threatening them ever since the gangrape case was filed, and "police is complicit".
"My son has been murdered... the police is complicit," the grieving father of the man killed in the road accident told reporters this morning.
On Tuesday, another family member of the girl also told reporters that they were facing threats. "As soon as we filed the complaint, the elder brother of the main accused started threatening us. 'Beware, my father is a sub-inspector; we will commit the same brutality again'," the family member said.
"While the medical examination was on, the father stepped out for a cup of tea. At the time, we have learnt that he was involved in a truck accident. He was rushed to a Kanpur hospital, but he has died. We have filed an accident case and we are investigating," Dr Preetinder Singh, Kanpur Police chief, said in a video statement earlier today.
"One of the accused was arrested yesterday. The second accused, Deepu Yadav, has also been arrested. We will soon arrest the third accused in the case," the Kanpur Police chief added.
The Kanpur Police had filed a case of gang-rape and criminal intimidation on Tuesday based on a complaint by the girl's father.
"The father filed a rape case and we had immediately acted on it. The survivor is fine. We have formed five teams to investigate the case," Brijesh Shrivastava, a senior police official in Kanpur, said on Tuesday.
Amid outrage over the incident, in a tweet, the UP Police directed the Kanpur Police to "carry out swift investigations" in both the cases. It also asked for the truck involved in the accident to be recovered and the driver to be arrested soon.
Reacting to the incident, Dr Alok Tiwari, District Magistrate, Kanpur, said: "The government and the administration are with the survivor's family. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has announced compensation. Both the cases will be investigated swiftly and no one will be spared. The guilty will face tough legal action. We are considering action under the National Security Act."
Man Arrested For Threatening To 'Kill' Yogi Adityanath: Cops UP Police Constable 2024 DV Admit Card Released, Check Steps To Download UP Man Dies By Suicide In Bengaluru, Alleges Harassment By Wife In Note "Congress Should Be Ready...": Mani Shankar Aiyar's Big INDIA Bloc Remark 3 Marriages, Rs 1.25 Crore: How 'Looting Bride' Targeted Rich Men Bashar Al-Assad's Wife Files For Divorce, Wants To Return To UK: Report Lower Your Blood Pressure This Winter With These Simple Tips Scammers, Fake Accounts, Controversial Figures: Bluesky's Many Struggles Women Raped As Families Watch, Children Killed: African Militia On Rampage Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.