Death of 2 teenage Dalit girls: Police say suicide; families suspect foul play

Farrukhabad (UP): A day after the bodies of two Dalit girls were found hanging in an orchard in Uttar Pradesh's Farrukhabad, police on Wednesday said the post-mortem concluded they died of hanging and that it was a case of suicide, even as their family members said they suspected foul play.

The opposition Samajwadi Party, Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party questioned the handling of the case and demanded justice for the victims.

The girls, aged 15 and 18, had left their homes on August 26 around 10 pm to visit a nearby temple on the occasion of Janmashtami but did not return, the police had said earlier.

"The postmortem was conducted by a panel of doctors. They (girls) died due to hanging. No external injury marks have been found on the bodies," Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Avnindra Singh said.

"The doctor panel has sent slides of vaginal fluid to the laboratory to rule out the possibility of rape," the CMO said.

The police said the findings of the postmortem align with their initial investigation into the case.

"The findings of the police investigation correlate with the findings of the postmortem examination. The girls have committed suicide. No external injury marks have been found on the bodies," Superintendent of Police (SP) Alok Priyadarshi said.

"Police teams are now investigating the reasons that forced the girls to take the extreme step," he said.

Meanwhile, the father of one of the deceased girls alleged that the post-mortem report was fake.

"You have found out that they committed suicide by hanging but the injury marks on their bodies have not been mentioned in your report... This is all fake. All the reports are false," the father told PTI Videos.

"They could not have (hanged themselves). Somebody must have murdered (the girls)," he said.

The father of the second deceased girl also said he suspects that the girls were murdered. "We want the truth to come out. We don't have any enmity with anyone," he said.

The girls' family members initially refused to perform their last rites, demanding a meeting with the district magistrate and superintendent of police, the police said.

The families had on Tuesday demanded a CB-CID probe into the matter.

Both the officials met the family members and assured them of a swift investigation into the matter, after which the families agreed to proceed with the last rites of the deceased, they added.

The bodies of the teenage girls were recovered outside a village in the Kayamganj police station area in Fatehgarh on Tuesday morning.

According to the police, the girls were close friends and lived in the same neighbourhood. The bodies were hanging with two 'dupattas' which were tied together, they said.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi slammed the Uttar Pradesh government over the incident and said even expecting justice under a BJP dispensation is a crime.

The incident is very unfortunate. Such an attitude of the administration towards the victim's family cannot be tolerated at any cost, he said and shared the video of the father of one of the deceased girls.

"Even expecting justice under a BJP government is a crime! What can one expect from those whose priority is not justice but hiding the crime even in the most serious incidents against the weak and the deprived?" Gandhi said in a post on X in Hindi.

"How long can all this be tolerated? As a society, this is a big question before us!" the former Congress chief said.

Security is the right of every daughter of India and justice is the right of every victim's family, he added.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked if Dalits, backward, deprived, poor and women should give up hope for justice now.

In a post in Hindi on X, she said, "Why does a father have to raise these questions after such a horrific incident? Doesn't a victim's father have the right to know the truth about the treatment meted out to his daughter? Why is the administration in a hurry to cremate the bodies of the girls?"

"The attitude of the administration towards the incident that happened with two Dalit girls in Farrukhabad is raising many questions," she said.

Be it Hathras, Unnao or Farrukhabad -- the same cruel story is repeated everywhere, she said.

So should the Dalits, backward, deprived, poor, women, or whoever is weak, give up hope of justice now, she asked.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said it was time to put "women's safety above party politics" and called for an "impartial" inquiry into the matter.

Yadav said that he would send his party's delegation to Farukhabad to raise the voice for justice for the families.

"The silence of the BJP government in the case of the suspicious death of two girls in Farrukhabad is disturbing. Perhaps there is a double reason for this, one is the BJP's anti-women thinking and attitude and the other is the victims being Dalits," Yadav said in a post on X.

"The people have no hope left from the BJP government. Whenever the BJP raises women's issues, there is only political gain behind it.

"That is why it raises its voice in opposition-ruled states, but in BJP-ruled states, it shuts its mouth, eyes, ears and all doors of morality in cases of crimes against women," he said.