Authorities in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras on Saturday reopened the borders and said they will allow media to enter the village in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, where a 19-year-old woman was gang-raped, officials said.
Police had set up barricades roughly 2km from the village on the main road early on Thursday, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen on the mud tracks and in the fields to prevent any “outsiders” from accessing the village.
Officials had also said that Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits the assembly of four or more people, was clamped in the area. They had said the ongoing probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions.
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“Since SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than five media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place,” Prem Prakash Meena, Sadar senior divisional magistrate, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
“Only the media is allowed right now. When orders come in to allow delegations, we will let everybody know. All allegations about phones of the family members being taken away or confining them in their homes are absolutely baseless,” Meena said.
UP’s director general of police HC Awasthi will visit Hathras amid a controversy over local administration’s handling of the alleged rape case.
Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, are expected to visit the village later in the day to meet the woman’s family, the party has said. The woman was allegedly raped by four dominant-caste men on September 14 when she had gone to the fields in her village to gather cattle fodder.
She was admitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of Aligarh Muslim University after she was left partially paralysed and then shifted to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi when her condition did not improve. She died on Tuesday morning.