The mother of the Hathras victim wept inconsolably in Priyanka Gandhi’s embrace on Saturday evening, her pent-up emotions released at the first touch of sympathy from the political spectrum after weeks of hurtful insensitivity and harassment from the Yogi Adityanath government.
The poignant scene unfolded when Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka and three other Congress leaders arrived at her home, succeeding in their second attempt in three days to reach the barricaded village after the administration blinked following initial resistance.
Footage showed Priyanka jumping over a small lane divider and rushing to shield a Congress supporter who was surrounded by lathi-wielding policemen. Priyanka stood between the man and the police in the melee that involved considerable shoving and pushing.
An Uttar Pradesh police officer grabs the attire of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Noida as Congress leaders and supporters try to proceed towards Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit girl who was murdered. Eventually, five members of a delegation led by Rahul Gandhi was permitted to go to Hathras. PTI
At one point, a helmeted police officer could be seen grabbing Priyanka’s kurta, prompting a journalist to tweet: “A male police officer grabbing the kurta of Priyanka
Gandhi is a symbol of how drunk on power UP police has gotten.”
The five Congress leaders were the first senior politicians to visit the family who had been turned prisoners in their home by the state administration the last few days, denied any contact with the outside world and allegedly roughed up when they sought to step out.
For the grieving mother, Priyanka’s would have been among the first offers of a shoulder to cry on from someone outside the family, since even her immediate neighbourhood is dominated by people who have rallied behind the upper-caste accused.
The family narrated their ordeal to the Congress leaders and pleaded for help in securing justice.
When Rahul and Priyanka asked about the administration’s act of cursorily burning the girl’s body — without the family’s consent or participation or even a proper funeral, and after locking the family at their home — the mother’s tears began flowing again.
Priyanka, with an arm around the mother’s shoulders, spoke to the other women of the family while Rahul listened intently as the victim’s father, brother and uncles recounted the gruesome events.
Uttar Pradesh police try to stop Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi and party workers from reaching Hathras to meet the family members of the victim. Later, permitted to go to Hathras, Priyanka, Rahul and three others proceeded by car. Prem Singh and PTI
The 19-year-old girl had allegedly been gang-raped and had her tongue cut off and spine broken by four assailants on September 14. She died in a Delhi hospital on September 29, amid allegations that the administration had denied her the best possible treatment and tried to dilute the charges against the accused. As soon as she died, the police hijacked her body from the hospital and forcibly burnt it at her village cremation ground.
When Rahul asked whether the family preferred a CBI probe, the family expressed faith in a judicial probe instead.
Sometime later, PTI reported that chief minister Adityanath had recommended a CBI probe shortly after additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi and state police chief H.C. Awasthi met the victim’s family at their home. The news agency too quoted the family as saying they preferred a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry.
The BJP accused Rahul and Priyanka of playing politics, perhaps remembering how their grandmother Indira Gandhi had reaped political benefits from her visit to Bihar’s Belchi village after a massacre of Dalits decades ago.
While the siblings’ visit would have been driven as much by political considerations as by humane sentiments, a Congress leader wondered: “If politics is not done on injustice and crime, should it be done only to divide and rule?”
The brutalised family would have desperately needed the healing touch — and the sense of reassurance that only the powerful can provide — having seen the state administration fail their daughter in life and death, the police go slow on the case, and ruling party members dispute her deathbed statement identifying the accused.
After the 40-minute meeting, Rahul vowed to take up the family’s cause and said the Congress would go wherever injustice had been committed. Priyanka said the family was worried about its security.
With the administration permitting just five from the Congress convoy to visit the village, Adhir Chowdhury, Mukul Wasnik and K.C. Venugopal accompanied Rahul and Priyanka while MP Shashi Tharoor and party communications chief Randeep Surjewala stayed behind.
That permission had come after a battle of nerves. On Thursday, the Uttar Pradesh police had prevented a Congress team from entering the state and meeting the Hathras family, with Rahul being pushed to the ground amid the fracas.
On Saturday, too, the state had deployed hundreds of cops at the entry point in Noida. Anticipating the blockade, the Congress had mobilised a huge crowd to try and pressure the administration into changing its stand.
With over 5,000 agitated Congress supporters, men and women, gathered at the Delhi-Noida border with hundreds of vehicles — which caused a traffic jam on the extremely busy road — it wasn’t easy for the administration to turn them down.
Thursday’s daylong drama on the Yamuna Expressway had provided the Congress with much publicity and goodwill, and Saturday’s much bigger crowd had the potential to kick up a bigger ruckus on the roads. Besides, the administration had already in the morning allowed the media to meet the family.
Senior police officers offered Rahul and Priyanka passage for five people and their security vehicles if the crowds returned from that point.
Although the Congress workers were eager to accompany their leaders, Rahul appealed to them to return. Still, the police wielded the baton to stop party workers from jumping the barricade, the fracas generating dramatic visuals of Priyanka engaged in a scuffle to protect a Congress worker from the police’s caning in the middle of a frenzied crowd.
Earlier, around 25 MPs had followed Rahul and Priyanka to the border, travelling in a bus behind the leader’s car. The convoy’s halt at the Noida border created a media spectacle for around two hours, and the Congress leaders made the most of it.
Surjewala addressed the media there, saying: “Is it a crime to stand by the victim, to wipe the tears of the family? Chief minister Yogi Adityanath is a coward. But let him get this clear — his police and their lathis and guns can’t suppress the Congress’s voice.”
Tharoor said: “We want to express solidarity with the family, which is grappling with unprecedented atrocities. The suspension of police officials is too little too late.”
Congress leaders expressed shock at the special investigation team’s recommendation for narco-analysis tests on the victim’s family. They argued that the test should instead be done on the Hathras district magistrate to ascertain who had ordered the forcible burning of the victim’s body in the middle of the night.