Minor Dalit girl in Aligarh found dead; family alleges rape

A minor dalit girl was found dead in a forested area near a village in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh district, about 400 kilometres from Lucknow.

The family of the deceased alleged that the girl appeared to have to been raped before being murdered. The police, however, said that the post-mortem report of the deceased was yet to be received and whether she was raped could be confirmed only after the report was seen.

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According to police sources, the minor, a resident of Akrabad area in the district, had gone to nearby forests to fetch fodder for the cattle on Sunday evening, when she went missing. The family members launched a search for her and after a few hours, her body was found in a field a few hundred metres from the village.

Eye-witness accounts said that her clothes were torn and it appeared that she had been raped before being killed.

The residents of the village clashed with the cops, when the latter tried to shift the body to the district hospital for autopsy, sources said. The villagers resorted to heavy stone pelting in which several police personnel, including an inspector, suffered injuries. Some vehicles of the police were also torched, sources said.

It took several hours and efforts from the senior officials to persuade the villagers to allow the body to be taken to the mortuary. ''We have formed five teams to investigate the matter and nab the culprits,'' a senior district police official said.

He said that prima facie, it appeared that the girl was strangled.

Cases of crimes against women have risen sharply in the past few months in the state triggering widespread outrage. The opposition parties have accused the state government of failing to ensure safety of women.