CHITRAKOOT (UP): Two policemen were on Wednesday suspended for laxity following the alleged gangrape and suicide of a 15-year-old Dalit girl, a senior police official said.
Chitrakoot Superintendent of Police (SP) Ankit Mittal said prima facie, it seemed that there was laxity in discharge of duty by Karvi police station SHO Jaishankar Singh and Sub-Inspector Anil Sahu, the in-charge of Sariaya police outpost.
"Both of them have been suspended," he said.
The SP said the last rites of the girl were conducted on Wednesday.
Divisional Commissioner of Chitrakootdham division Gaurav Dayal, IG Chitrakoot range K Satyanarayan, district-level police officers were also present there.
"The aggrieved family, with consent, conducted the last rites of the victim," the SP said.
He said that initially the family refused to perform them after "being misled by some people" but on the assurance of the divisional commissioner and inspector general, the family agreed to conduct the last rites.
"A heavy police force was also present at the times of the last rites," Mittal said.
He said that on Tuesday night, the IG and District Magistrate Sheshmani Pandey met the family of the victim, and assured them of justice.
Mittal said doctors who conducted the post-mortem examination of the victim stated that she died due to hanging.
"Since, there has been no confirmation of rape, the slide has been sent to forensic science laboratory, Lucknow," he said.
The Dalit teenager committed suicide on Tuesday by hanging herself in her house in a village in Chitrakoot.
After the girl's death, her family members alleged that she was raped by three men in a forest area on October 8, the officer said.
On the basis of a complaint from the victim's family members, former village head's son Kishan Upadhyay and his aides -- Ashish and Satish -- were arrested under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the SP said.
The family members alleged that the girl committed suicide as her complaint was not registered, a charge denied by the police who said that the victim''s kin had not given any application to lodge an FIR.
The victim's father alleged that after raping his daughter, the accused left her with her hands and legs tied and the police brought her back, but did not register an FIR.
The incident comes close on the heels of a 19-year-old Dalit woman succumbing in a Delhi hospital after allegedly being raped by four upper-caste men in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras, triggering a nationwide outrage.