Budaun sisters' graves submerged; exhuming work put off

A second autopsy was required as the first didn't say both were raped

In a setback to the CBI’s investigation into the gang-rape and murder of two teenaged cousin in Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun district, the work of exhuming the victims’ bodies for a second autopsy was postponed as the overflowing Ganga submerged their graves.

The CBI, which had started exhuming the bodies on Saturday, had to halt the work owing to heavy rains. “The graves are currently under 10 feet of water. It is not possible to exhume the bodies until the water level recedes,” said a district official present at Atena Ghat where the two bodies have been buried.

According to the locals, it would take at least two to three months for the water level to recede. “The water level of the Ganga here will continue to rise in the days to come following heavy rains in Uttarakhand and release of water from Narora barrage.

It will start receding only from September,” the officials said.

A second autopsy was required as the first one was inconclusive. The first autopsy, performed by a panel of local doctors, had not conclusively said that the two sisters had been gang-raped.

The state police chief, too, had claimed that only one of the sisters had been raped.
The DGP had also suspected that it could be a case of honour killing.

Local officials alleged that the CBI delayed the work of exhumation. “There was a warning that the water level will rise. Yet, the investigating agency started the work only on Saturday,” they said.

The CBI had quizzed the families of the two victims as well as the kin of the accused persons.  The agency had run a polygraph test on the five accused persons and also the family members of the two teenaged cousins.

The two teens, both cousins, aged 14 and 15, had gone out to answer the call of nature in May this year, when they went missing.

Their bodies were found hanging from a tree in a mango orchard outside the village the next morning.