Lakhimpur girl raped, murdered by cops: SC panel

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes on Friday accused policemen of raping and killing the Lakhimpur teenager, even as the Uttar Pradesh government filed a status report before the Allahabad high court on the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department probe into the incident.

The commission, which had visited Lakhimpur Kheri recently to inquire into the death of the 14-year-old girl in Nighasan police station, spoke to the parents of the victim and made an on-the-spot assessment.

After the inquiry, the commission concluded that the girl was raped and strangulated and later hanged from a tree in order to pass it off as a suicide, the NCSC said in a release.

Director of the Uttar Pradesh office of the NCSC, R D Chandrahas, who visited Nighasan on June 14, went through the panchnama and FIR. On their basis, he concluded that the girl was raped by policemen.

In order to save themselves and destroy evidence, they strangulated her. To project the girl's death as a suicide, her body was hanged with a loosely tied dupatta from a broken tree branch which was as low as five feet and her legs were also found folded, the release said.

Meanwhile, the Allahabad high court fixed July 4 as the next date of hearing after the UP government filed a status report on the investigation into the incident, The court asked the state government to file a complete investigation report.

The court, while hearing a petition filed by a local lawyer seeking direction for a CBI probe into the case, had asked the state government to apprise it of the status of the probe by the CB-CID or any agency.