Budaun 'rape' victims' kin threaten suicide

The family members of the two teenaged cousins, who were allegedly gang-raped and murdered, on Wednesday threatened to commit suicide if denied justice.

The threat comes in the wake of reports that the CBI, which was investigating the case, has not found any credible evidence to link the five accused persons with the gang-rape and murder of the two teens and the suspicion that the murder could be a case of ‘honour killing’.

“We will commit suicide by hanging ourselves from the same tree by which our sisters had been hanged after being gang-raped,” said the brother of one of the victims.

The family members said that the people of the village had started looking at them with suspicion after reports that they had failed the polygraph test. According to the reports, the lie detector tests of the accused have revealed that they were telling the truth while the tests conducted on the family members of the victims proved that they had lied.

“It seems as we are the accused now...it is very painful for us,” the brother said. He also said that the case was being politicised. “It seems doubtful that we will get justice now”, he remarked.

The CBI, according to sources, plans to get the bodies of the sisters exhumed for another post-mortem as soon as the water level of the Ganga starts receding. The bodies of  the sisters could not be exhumed as their graves were submerged under water owing to a sharp rise in the water level of the Ganga.

The two teens, 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.