Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday directed officials to initiate strict action and invoke the stringent National Security Act against those involved in the alleged rape and murder of a 17-year-old Dalit girl in Lakhimpur Kheri district.
The mutilated body of the girl was found near a dry pond around 200 metres from her village falling under the Neemgaon police limits on Tuesday. She had left home to fill out a scholarship application, police had said.
Her autopsy report later confirmed rape.
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Thursday sent a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and the state's police chief over the incident.
"The CM has given orders that action should be initiated under the National Security Act (NSA) against those involved in the incident," an official spokesperson said in Lucknow.
The chief minister also extended an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh to the bereaved family and told them that the state government would get the case heard in a fast track court in order to ensure that the guilty are punished at the earliest.
The NHRC in a statement observed that apparently, people with criminal intent have no fear and respect for law, and innocent women, particularly from the vulnerable classes of the society are easily targeted by them.
'The NHRC has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports that the Dalit girl was found raped and murdered in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh after she stepped out to fill a scholarship form online as she did not have internet access at home,' the human rights body said in a statement.
She was a first-generation learner in her family and had aspirations of landing a government job to lift her family out of poverty, it said.
The Commission has issued notices to the chief secretary and the director general of police, seeking a detailed report in four weeks.
The report must mention the status of the statutory relief and any other assistance provided by the state government to the family of the victim, it said.
'This is the duty of the state to make a fearless environment for its citizens so that they can live with respect and dignity,' the NHRC statement said.
According to media reports, carried on August, 27, the girl was murdered by a man whose marriage proposal she had rejected, the rights panel said.
The man was arrested on Wednesday, it said.
Reportedly, the girl, second of four children of the family, was the one, the parents had pinned their hopes on. She had just passed class 9 and was about to start her class 10, the first one from her family to study up to that level, it said.
The only source of income for the family is a two-bigha plot.
The girl was aiming to get Scheduled Caste scholarship (Rs 2,220 annually) which would have helped ease some of the financial burden on the family, but before it could happen, she became the victim of a heinous crime, it added.
