"Truth Has Prevailed": Priyanka Gandhi On CBI Chargesheet In Hathras Case

With the CBI filing its charge sheet in the case of gangrape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday said truth has prevailed and the development raises serious questions on the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.

The CBI on Friday filed a charge sheet against the four men accused of the gangrape and murder of the woman in a village in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, officials said.

After nearly two months of probe, the agency concluded in its final report that the accused -- Sandeep, Ravi, Luv Kush and Ramu -- allegedly gangraped and murdered the woman when she had gone to the fields to collect fodder on September 14, they said.

Reacting to the development, Priyanka Gandhi said the truth has prevailed once again.

"The CBI charge sheet filed today against four accused in the Hathras case has stated that the 19-year old victim was brutally gangraped and murdered," the Congress general secretary in-charge UP said in a statement.

This development raises serious questions on the Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, UP police, ADG Law and Order, District Magistrate of Hathras and Senior functionaries of the state administration, Priyanka Gandhi alleged.

"The state left no stone unturned to deny the victim dignity -- in life and death. She was cremated without her family's consent in the middle of the night. Senior police officers and bureaucrats outrightly denied any rape, intimidated her family and indulged in blatant shaming of the victim. Sections of media that dared to report the truth were manhandled," she alleged.

However, the entire might of the Uttar Pradesh government and police could not suppress the truth, Priyanka Gandhi asserted.

"I cannot forget the anguish of the 19-year-old's mother, who couldn't even bid her daughter goodbye. All that her family sought was justice for their child," she said.

"I am heartened to see that an important step towards providing that justice has been taken by the CBI and hope that it will bring the victim's family some comfort amidst the immense suffering that they have so courageously endured," Priyanka Gandhi said.

Earlier in a tweet in Hindi, she said, "On one side was government-protected injustice. On the other side was the family's hope for justice."

"The victim's body was burnt forcibly. Attempts were made to tarnish her image. Her family was threatened. But in the end, truth won," she said.

The Dalit woman, allegedly raped by four upper-caste men on September 14, died on September 29 at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.

Her body was cremated in the dead of the night near her home on September 30. Her family alleged they were forced by the local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites. Local police officers, however, said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family".