A 19 year old Dalit woman was allegedly raped by 4 upper class men in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. She died a few days ago at the Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi. It is unclear at this point why she was cremated in a hurry by the Uttar Pradesh Police at 3 AM in the night. What is the role of the police when it comes to cases like this and what can we, as ordinary citizens of India, expect the police to do or not do in sensitive cases like this? BOOM Explains.
Indira Jaising, Human Rights Lawyer & Sr Advocate, Supreme Court, says protocol wasn't followed by both police and hospital in the Hathras case. We had a dying declaration from the victim saying she was raped. Dying declarations have special status in law because the law presumes that if a person is near death, they will not lie about what they are saying and therefore, it holds high evidentiary value. The first hospital she was in should have summoned the magistrate to record her statement.
She also says that police or hospital do not own any dead body - the girl's body should have been handed over to the family. There is no justification as to why Safdarjung Hospital handed over the girls' body to the police instead of next of kin. The hospital had the obligation to alert her family and until then keep her in the morgue instead of handing over the victims body to the police.
Watch BOOM's Govindraj Ethiraj interview Indira Jaising on the many lapses by the Uttar Pradesh Police and hospitals involved in dealing with the Hathras case and legal protocol involved.