Various student organisations and activists protested against the alleged rape and murder of a nine-year-old Dalit girl in southwest Delhi’s old Nangal village and demanded speedy justice for the victim

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI), along with Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch and All India Democratic Women Association, held a protest at Jantar Mantar. The Left-backed All India Students’ Association (AISA) also held a protest at Jantar Mantar.

“Sexual violence against women is a larger problem concerning a patriarchal society wherein women are rendered inferior and powerless, as objects of men’s carnal desires and domination,” it said. Crimes against Dalit women have increased by six per cent in the last 10 years, it is both gendered and caste-based violence, the SFI said in a statement.

“Dalit women constitute among the most powerless and oppressed in the society owing to their gender and caste identity,” it said.

“Dalit women are doubly oppressed. We live in a political environment in which caste is being reinstated into our social order with its former vigour. It is no longer a disintegrating entity of the past but is being actively inserted into the very state’s framework, and as Brahminical notions of gender and caste get legitimized, crimes against women and lower castes will be on the rise. We must resist and rise in rage!” said Aishe Ghosh, member of Delhi state committee, and JNUSU president.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) will also be holding a march in the campus against the incident.

“The country witnessed how the Hathras accused were shielded by the RSS-BJP. In Delhi, the Delhi Police which is under Amit Shah has failed to ensure the safety and security of women in Delhi, Madhurima Kundu, vice president, Delhi AISA claimed.

Prasenjeet Kumar, the national working general secretary, AISA demanded the arrest of all accused involved in the crime. He said speedy trial in the case is necessary to ensure justice for the victim.

A team comprising Kavita Krishnan, CPIML Politburo member and Secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), Sucheta De, member of the CPIML Delhi State Committee, AISA Delhi President Kawalpreet Kaur and AISA activist Himanshu went to Nangal to show solidarity with the ongoing protest movement demanding justice for the nine-year-old girl.

The team met the grieving mother of the Nangal rape-murder victim, who reiterated her demand for justice in the case. She said her husband is unemployed and she picks rags or begs at Pir Baba Mazar – a Sufi shrine in order to survive. Her daughter was their only child, born after many prayers, she said.

The girl lived with her parents in a rented house in front of a crematorium. On Sunday at around 5.30 pm, she went to get cold water from a cooler at the crematorium after informing her mother, her parents said. Around 6 pm, the crematorium’s priest Radhey Shyam and two-three other people, known to the girl’s mother, called her there and showed her daughter’s body claiming that she got electrocuted while getting water from the cooler. There were burn marks between her left wrist and elbow, and her lips were also blue, according to police.

It was alleged that the priest and the others dissuaded her mother from making a PCR call, saying the police will make a case out of it and during post-mortem, doctors will steal the girl’s organs, so it was better to cremate her. The girl was cremated but subsequently, her parents alleged that it was done without their consent.

On Monday, the police had said that based on the statement of the victim’s mother, rape charges have been added in the FIR. Four people, including the priest, have been arrested, they added.