Parents of raped, killed teenage girl seek justice

KANPUR: Parents of 17-year-old Maya have little hope of getting justice. About a fortnight ago, their teenaged daughter was gang raped, brutally murdered and her body set on fire allegedly by the attackers.
They say that investigators have been shielding the perpetrators of heinous crime from day one.
Surprisingly, the Qayamganj Kotwali police under which the shocking incident took place, have till date not even lodged a complaint in the gruesome incident.
Sugriv Singh's teenage daughter Maya (name changed) was gang-raped and murdered and later her body was allegedly set on fire by the accused on the outskirts of the village. The incident took place during the wee hours of April 14, in their house in Jirau village under the limits of Qayamganj police station in Farrukhabad district.
“My daughter Maya had gone to see a ‘nautanki’ in the village. After some time, she returned home and went to sleep inside her room on the ground floor of the house. I along with my wife and children was sleeping on the roof of the house. Early next morning, when my wife came down, she found Sadhna murdered,” said Sugriv.
The girl’s parents claimed that her clothes were disturbed and the body bore strangulation marks on the neck besides deep scratch wounds on other vital parts.
The victim’s father further alleged that soon six suspected youths, Neetu, Ankit, Gopal, Hari Om, Manoj and Dheeraj Saxena, who live in their neighbourhood, arrived on the scene and forcibly took the body into their possession. They then took it to the outskirts of the village and set it on fire.
“The suspects sprinkled diesel on her body and set it on fire so as to destroy the evidences as they were afraid of being caught," said Sugriv.
He alleged that the police have even replaced their original application with a duplicate one, that according to him was a part of the same set of blank papers on which her wife Meena Devi was forcibly asked to give a thumb impression by the Circle Officer of Mohhamdabad who had held her captive for nearly four hours on April 20 for procuring the signature.
The application was in fact handed over to the inspector Kotwali, Qayamganj, Vijay Bahadur Singh on April 21.
“As soon as additional superintendent of police, Farrukhabad, O P Singh, was apprised about the incident, the police were on their toes. But later only god knows what happened to the investigators. Now they even don't want to see us, what to say about complaint," says Meena Devi, the distraught mother of the victim. "We no longer have any hope left of the police or any other agency nabbing the accused who so heinously killed our daughter."
Sugriv says the police initially tried their utmost to solve the case but no more for now. "Though two weeks have passed since the incident, the loss of our daughter still leaves us in pain every time we think of her."
The girl's parents had even met state home guards minister Narendra Singh Yadav, who assured them of justice. “Just giving assurances will not bring back my daughter. We want some action against the real perpetrators of crime," says Sugriv.
He says that the accused are still roaming free and have been continuously threatening us not to report the incident to anyone. "They have been warning us with the same fate, which our minor daughter had met," Sugriv says. "They were following me everywhere, threatening me and asking me to withdraw the case. Police are doing nothing, knowing well that I am being threatened by the accused," he added.
However, senior police officials of the district denied the allegation.
"There was no inaction on the police’s side and we will investigate the matter. We would go through the allegations levelled by the complainant against the accused," said, additional SP O P Singh.