NEW DELHI: A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, a senior party leader said.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be part of the delegation that will meet the family to hear their grievances and demand justice for them, sources said.
"Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year old-daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted & murdered," Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted.
On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman.
In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this."
Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government is "morally corrupt".
"The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi.
"This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said.
The party alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in their attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her.
Rahul on Friday accused the Yogi Adityanath government of taking to brutality to hide the truth of the Hathras incident and alleged that the family members of the victim were being beaten up, a behaviour which no Indian can support.
He took to Twitter to allege that neither any political party nor the media was allowed to meet the victims family in Hathras and they were also not allowed to come out.
He shared a video of a small child in the victim's village telling the media that the woman's family members were being beaten up and threatened by the authorities, besides not being allowed to meet anyone.
The child who claimed to be a relative of the victim alleged that the telephones of all family members had been taken away by police and their entire house and the neighbourhood was put under lockdown, with no one being allowed to enter or leave.
"The UP government has taken to brutality cover up the truth. Neither us, nor the media is being allowed to meet the victim's family. Neither are they allowed to come out. On top of this, the family members of the victim are being beaten up and brutalised. No one in India will support such a behaviour," he said in a tweet in Hindi while sharing the video.
This comes a day after the former Congress president and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the victim.
Priyanka Gandhi also took a swipe the Uttar Pardesh government over the manner in which it was dealing with the public.
Greeting people on former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's birth anniversary, she cited a quote by him that said, "Those who rule should see how people react to the administration. Ultimately the public is the leader."
On October 1, the police in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar lodged an FIR against Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and around 200 other party workers under The Epidemic Diseases Act for not maintaining social distancing and not wearing face masks.
The FIR was lodged under Indian Penal Code sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (unlawfully or negligently spreading infection of any disease dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and under section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, the police said.
"Some party members have also been booked for indulging in a scuffle during which some women constables were hurt while the uniform of a lady sub-inspector got torn," the Gautam Buddh Nagar police said in a statement.
On the same day, around 200 Congress workers, including senior leaders of the party, had started a march on the expressways in Greater Noida after their convoy was stopped near Pari Chowk.
The two Gandhi siblings and around 150 party workers were briefly detained by the police and later released on personal bond, a senior officer told PTI.
The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14.
After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday.
She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night.
(With Agencies Inputs)