New Delhi, (Samajweekly) The tragic incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district in which two minor girls were found dead on Thursday morning has triggered a fresh round of face-off between the Congress and the ruling BJP.
Tied with ‘dupattas’, three minor girls were found in an unconscious state in Unnao’s Baburaha village on Thursday morning. Two of them were declared brought dead at the district hospital while the third girl was referred to a private hospital in Kanpur in a critical condition. The preliminary post-mortem has confirmed “death due to poisoning”.
The Congress has alleged that the police are trying to cover up the incident and not providing proper treatment to the lone surviving victim, and even demanded that the autopsy of the two deceased be conducted in AIIMS.
“Congress stands with the daughters of Unnao,” the party said in a statement.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Congress leader Alka Lamba showed a clipping of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in the run up to the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, in which he could be heard talking about women’s security.
“Why the lone surviving girl has not been airlifted to Delhi for proper treatment? We hoped that the government will show some sensitivity,” Lamba said, as she compared the case to the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in UP’s Hathras last year, claiming that treatment was delayed in that case and the same thing is happening now.
The Congress said that the family members have demanded a CBI probe into the Unnao case as nobody believes in UP police and the kind of probe they conducted in the Hathras case.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also tweeted about the incident.
Rahul Gandhi said that the women in UP — not only Dalits — are facing violation of human rights. “The Congress party will fight to ensure justice for such victims,” he tweeted in Hindi.
In a Facebook post, Priyanka Gandhi termed the incident as ‘heart-wrenching’ and asked the state government to shift the third girl to Delhi for advanced treatment and ensure justice for the victims’ families.
She said that according to reports, the families are ‘under house arrest’ which is unacceptable.
