The Hathras victim’s sister-in-law on Thursday accused local MP and Dalit BJP leader Rajveer Diler of conspiring at the state government’s behest to try and establish that the Dalit girl was subjected to “honour killing” by her own family.

The girl’s father underlined that his younger son and an accused had the same name and claimed the administration was portraying calls between brother and sister, among others, as those between the victim and the suspect to concoct a “love affair”.

The sister-in-law’s allegation came as a letter written purportedly by the four accused was circulated among the media and beamed by some TV channels. It claimed the Dalit girl’s family had killed her because she was in a relationship with one of the Rajput accused.

“The MP met the four accused in Hathras district jail on October 2, got a letter written by them, and is now circulating it among the media and members of the Rajput caste,” the sister-in-law said.

Diler denied the allegation. “I was passing by near the jail and received a call from someone who was there,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“I sat in an officer’s cabin and met the staff member who had called me. I didn’t meet anybody lodged in the jail.”

According to the letter, one of the accused — the alleged boyfriend — and the girl had met in a millet field on September 14 and were seen by her mother and a brother. The letter alleges the enraged family then murdered the girl in an “honour killing”. It denies rape.

The sister-in-law said: “Yogi Adityanath’s government will never let it be known that Rajputs raped a Dalit sweeper’s daughter. So, the entire government machinery is working round the clock to save the accused.”

She added: “We know that justice comes at a cost in India. But we are going to fight the Rajputs to the end because God is with us.”

Name game

Officials have been showing reporters call details that suggest the “boyfriend” and one of the girl’s brothers exchanged 104 phone calls between October 2019 and March this year.

Claiming that the girl regularly used the brother’s phone and was involved in most of the conversations, the officials have been suggesting a “love affair” to discredit the gang-rape allegation and tarnish the girl’s reputation in the light of the prevalent patriarchal attitudes.

On Wednesday, the brother had admitted to a stray question that his sister often used his phone. However, the father put the record straight on Thursday.

“One of the jailed accused and my younger son have the same first name. The mobile number the government people are talking about (as registered in the name of the accused ‘boyfriend’) belongs to my son and the phone was always with him,” he said.

“There’s another mobile, also registered in the name of my younger son, which the rest of the family used. I and other family members used to speak to my son on that phone.”

The father said neither his daughter nor anyone else from the family had ever been in touch with the accused.

“My son or daughter never spoke to them on the phone. But the government is powerful and can prove anything,” he said.