Lakhimpur: Unanswered questions in India sisters’ hanging

Just hrs after two teenaged sisters were found hanging from a woods in the northern Indian native state of Uttar Pradesh earlier this month, police stated they had solved the crime and arrested six men.

But the families of the particular victims and the falsely accused have raised severe questions about the investigation, saying their edition of events is very different from that of the authorities. There has also been critique about some political figures and a section of the media intensely focusing on the religion of the accused.

The BBC’s Geeta Pandey and Vineet Khare travelled in order to Lakhimpur district, approximately 200km (124 miles) from the state funds, Lucknow, to patch together the story of a crime that’s made head lines in India.

Less than 24 hours after the crime, police held a press conference where they named the arrested men: the main accused – the Dalit neighbour from the victims’ family – and five Muslims from a nearby village.

Superintendent associated with police Sanjeev Suman said the guys had “given confessions” and gave details of what happened.

He mentioned “[the main accused] had introduced the girls to two from the Muslim men and they will became friends” and that they went “willingly with these on their bike”.

“The accused said they got angry plus raped and strangled the girls because they were putting pressure with them to get married. They then called two a lot more associates and, using their help, hanged the girls, ” he added.

The police claim continues to be strongly contested from the families of the accused who say their particular sons are harmless, that they have been roughed up in custody and that some of them are minors.

The particular girls’ family has also questioned the police’s version, saying this maligns their daughters.

The sisters — 17 and 15 – were kidnapped by three males who came on the motorbike, says their own mother, the only see to the abductions.

“When I attempted to chase them, one of the men kicked me in the stomach and am fell down, ” she told the BBC, tears moving down her cheeks. By the time she has been back up on her feet, she says her daughters had vanished in the nearby areas.

The two-room house of the Dalit (formerly known as untouchables) family sits next to massive areas and acres associated with sugarcane fields and it is easy to get lost amidst the tall crops.

The girls’ father said this individual was returning from the fields when their wife relayed the particular bad news.

The villagers formed research parties and began scouring the sugarcane fields. Two-and-a-half-hours later on, they stumbled upon the particular girls’ bodies, dangling from a tree, not far away from their home.

“Suddenly everybody started shouting, ‘they’re here, they’re here’, ” he stated, wiping away their tears. “We instantly informed the police, inch he added.

The family contests the police edition that the girls knew the accused. The picture they paint of the sisters is of hard-working girls who have did all the housework and kept to themselves.

“They certainly not went anywhere unescorted, ” says their particular brother.

“Our girls were quite simple, police are making upward stories about them, ” adds the father.

A couple of kms from the victims’ home are the homes of the five Muslim falsely accused.

Their parents say they have no clue if their sons understood the sisters, however they insist that their children are not murderers.

The daddy of one of the offender – who the police claim was imprisoned following a face-off by which he was photo in the leg – breaks down repeatedly while talking to the BBC.

He says the police achieved their home late at night and asked your pet to call their son who was in the way to Hyderabad where he worked.

The son got down from the bus in the town associated with Pilibhit, from where he was arrested.

“I was with the law enforcement in their vehicle, however they put my kid in another vehicle. They did not even let me meet your pet, ” his dad alleges.

“I later heard that my son had been shot in the leg. I have no idea why they shot your pet. Police say it was an encounter, they shot him because he tried to run away. But he wasn’t working away, he has been returning. Why might he do that if he intended to try to escape? ” he asks.

“If he’s accountable, hang him but at least do a study properly, ” he says, adding that he thinks only a federal inquiry can bring out the reality.

The families furthermore dispute the police declare that the accused are all adults.

According to their official government-issued identity cards, one of the accused was born within 2008 which would make him 14 whilst another is 17. The mothers of two others furthermore claimed that their sons were not however 18. One of them showed an ID credit card that would put her son’s age with 18, but the lady maintained that he has been only 17 years of age.

Mr Suman, nevertheless , rejected the families’ claim. “There is no evidence to suggest that these accused are minor. The medical evidence also factors to the fact that they are grown ups. So , unless we get any information towards the contrary, we are treating them as adults, ” he informed the BBC.

Although both Dalit and Muslim villagers have told the particular BBC they did not think there was any religious angle to the crime, some members of the state’s : and India’s – governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) have made that will link.

Speaking on a prime-time debate on a TV channel, BJP spokesperson in Uttar Pradesh Anila Singh suggested the criminal offense could be a case of “love jihad” — a term major Hindu groups value to imply that Muslim guys prey on Hindu females to convert these to Islam through relationship.

“The analysis will reveal whether it was a case of love jihad delete word, ” she informed the BBC, including that “it could be, because we have seen such cases take place not only in Uttar Pradesh, not only in India, but in the world as well. It is a natural reality. Yes, love jihad happens”.

The case has also drawn evaluations with the alleged gang-rape and battery of a 19-year-old Dalit woman within the state’s Hathras area two years back which usually had made worldwide headlines.

Inspite of the woman naming her four upper-caste Hindu neighbours as her attackers, the police took days to detain them. And a BJP leader in the state held a rally in support of the offender.

Although many have praised the police to get solving the Lakhimpur case so quickly, some villagers plus local journalists possess questioned the “tearing hurry” in announcing the names of the offender.

They say it ties in with the marginalisation of the minority Muslim community in the state – an accusation denied by the nearby BJP legislator Shashank Verma.

“The analysis is being done in an extremely responsible manner. The religion of the arrested is inconsequential. A criminal is a criminal, ” he stated.

Last Wednesday, exactly a week after the teenaged sisters were found hanging, police took four of the accused back to the Tamoli Purva village to “recreate the particular crime scene”.

Among them was the person who was shot in the foot, walking having a slight limp, with his right leg inside a plaster cast.

As they walked surrounded by policemen, the reporter thrust the microphone into their deals with and asked when they felt remorse for his or her actions.

“We got nothing to do with this particular, ” said one of these. “We were not also there. ”

Additional reporting by Prashant Pandey in Lakhimpur