LUCKNOW: In multi-prong actions in the Hathras gang-rape case, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) is likely to reconstruct the scene of crime and may interrogate Bhim Army members while other probe agencies, including the ED, are scanning bank accounts and call detail records of the four PFI members arrested in Mathura.
The SIT has shortlisted about 40 people whose statements would be recorded in connection with the sequence of events related to the crime, said sources. They would be asked about the circumstances which led to the cremation, which the victim’s family claimed, was held without its consent.
Sources privy to the probe revealed the victim’s mother and brother would be taken to the crime scene for tracing their exact locations and then asked to recollect and recall the events which unfolded on the morning of September 14. The three-member SIT team has so far recorded the statements of each member of the victim’s family along with the cops who were deployed in the village.
As per sources, the team has recorded statements of over 100 persons. On the basis of its recommendations, five policemen including the Hathras SP were suspended on October 2 for poor handling of the case. The Enforcement Directorate which is looking into alleged foreign funding to Popular Front of India (PFI) and its student wing Campus Front of India (CFI), may also question the Bhim Army office bearers and probe into its alleged link with PFI, said state government officials.
While tracing the real regulators and beneficiaries of the funds generated through a website, the ED is also trying to connect missing links by scanning the phone call details and the bank accounts of the PFI men arrested in Mathura. Preliminary probe revealed that large funds were diverted into the accounts of people and groups who launched the now defunct website. Funds were said to have been sourced for inciting caste and communal conflicts in the garb of seeking justice for the Hathras victim.
CCTV cameras fixed at victim’s home
Sixty security personnel have been deployed and eight CCTV cameras installed at the house of a Dalit woman, police said on Friday. DIG Shalabh Mathur, who has been sent to Hathras, told a news agency that if needed a control room will also be established there.