Indian court clears three of four accused in rape case

• Three of the four men accused of raping and killing a Dalit woman in 2020.
• They were found guilty of culpable homicide, sparking demonstrations.
• And reforms to India’s rape laws.

Three of the four men accused of raping and killing a Dalit woman, 19, in 2020 were cleared by an Indian court.

After the attack in the Hathras district of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, the adolescent was sent to a hospital in Delhi.

Later, she succumbed to her wounds.

After officials allegedly forcedly incinerated her body without her family’s permission, the issue had caused indignation on a global scale.

The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which addresses crimes against Dalits and tribal, states that only one of the four accused—who all belonged to a higher caste—was found guilty of culpable homicide that did not amount to murder.

Once horrifying information about the alleged crime surfaced, the matter had hugely prompted demonstrations in India.

In 2021, the woman’s family reported to the Geeta Pandey that they had discovered her in a field, assaulted and bruised, barely conscious, and nude below the waist.

She was bleeding, had a shattered back, and was spitting up blood.

It was difficult for her to talk because of the large gash on her tongue. Nonetheless, she had claimed that she had been raped in her testimony to the police.

The 19-year-old identified four of her neighbors as the culprits of her gang rape and strangulation in her “dying declaration,” which she gave to a court.

She spent a fortnight struggling for her life before passing away on September 29 in a hospital.

Thereafter, the case was turned over to India’s federal police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The episode brought to light the widespread sexual abuse that 80 million Dalit women in India experience. These women, like their male counterparts, are at the bottom of the country’s strict caste system.

Since the 2012 gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi, which sparked widespread demonstrations and reforms to the nation’s rape laws, rape and sexual violence have received more attention in India.

But, there hasn’t been much evidence of a decrease in crimes against women and girls.

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