On the final day of 2020, the Uttar Pradesh government finally transferred Hathras District Magistrate Praveen Kumar Laxkar, who reportedly ordered the cremation of the 19-year-old woman who was brutally gang-raped in a Hathras village on September 14 and died a fortnight later in a Delhi hospital.
While local police officers were suspended after the national uproar over the young woman's cremation which took place in the early hours of September 29-30 morning, the Ajay Mohan Bisht government in Lucknow let Laxkar stay on in Hathras till Thursday, December 31.
Dominic Xavier remembers the Hathras victim and hopes that the perpetrators of the gang-rape and murder are punished with the most stringest punishment available under Indian law.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com