The High Court in Uttar Pradesh said the cremation of the 20-year-old woman in Hathras by the state authorities, though done in the name of law and order, "is prima facie an infringement upon the human rights of the victim and her family".
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had taken up the case amid the countrywide outrage over the brutal torture and alleged gangrape of the woman and the subsequent 2 am cremation by the police.?
The reasons given by the Hathras district administration to deny the victim's family a chance to conduct her last rites were not satisfactory, Allahabad high court has said.?The observation was part of an order ¡ª made public on Tuesday ¡ª by the division bench of justices Pankaj Mithal and Rajan Roy who recorded statements of the victim¡¯s family and government officials on Monday.
In its order after yesterday's hearing, the court -- which is examining the role of the police in the matter, including the secret cremation -- said?the woman was "at least entitled to decent cremation in accordance with her religious customs and rituals, which essentially were to be performed by her family".?
"We do not at this stage find any good reason on behalf of the administration (Hathras) as to why they could not hand over the body to the family members for some time, say for even half an hour, to enable them to perform their rituals at home and thereafter to cremate it either in the night or next day," said the court.??
The judges said they will focus on two things: Possible violation of rights of the victim and her family, and larger issues involved in the context of such rights. The court also found the decision to cremate the victim was taken at the local level.?The judges also warned against "character assassination" of the 19-year-old. "No one should indulge in character assassination of the victim just as the accused should not be pronounced guilty before a fair trial," the court said.??
Yesterday, the court reminded the police about the rape laws, which accept a dying declaration from an assaulted woman as a fact.
"How do you know she wasn't raped? Has the investigation concluded? Please go through the new rape law of 2013," the court told senior police officer Prashant Kumar.
The woman, a member of the Scheduled Castes, had died at a Delhi hospital after fighting for her life for two weeks. Half strangled, bearing multiple fractures, naked, bleeding and paralysed, she was left for dead in a field by her so-called "upper caste" attackers on September 14.
The police cremated the body around 2 am, without allowing the family to hold last rites or even allowing them a last glimpse. They were kept locked up inside their house and not allowed to attend the funeral.