Woman’s body found in Karhal during polling, father says she was killed for supporting BJP

TNN | Nov 21, 2024, 12.27 AM IST

Kanpur: The body of a 23-year-old Dalit woman, who was missing since Tuesday evening, was found stuffed in a gunny bag in Karhal area of Mainpuri on Wednesday when voting for the bypoll was underway in the constituency.

While the deceased girl’s family, in the written complaint handed over to the police, did not cite any political angle to the killing, her father later told media persons his daughter was murdered as she had told the alleged assailants that she would be voting for the BJP. Mainpuri SP Vinod Kumar said that these allegations would be included in the FIR.

UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary accused the SP of orchestrating the crime since the victim had expressed her intention to vote for the saffron party. “The SP has activated its crime cell after getting convinced of losing the by polls,” Chaudhary told reporters in Lucknow.

“The body of a 23-year-old girl from Karhal was found this morning. It was later sent for postmortem. A case was registered against two people by her father. One of them is Prashant Yadav and the other is Mohan Katheria. Both of them have been arrested. Her parents have given a statement that their daughter was murdered in order to prevent her from voting for the BJP. The allegation will be included in the investigations and probed,” The statement issued by police said.

“The victim’s parents’ complaint says that the accused, who were known to them, took their daughter to their office on a motorcycle. There, they forced her to consume alcohol after spiking it with intoxicating substances, and subsequently sexually assaulted her before strangling her to death,” the police said.

The case was registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 123 (causing hurt by means of poison), 70(1) (gang rape), 103(1) (murder), and 3(2)V SC/ST Act.

“As the victim belongs to a Scheduled Caste, the Sub-Divisional Officer of Karhal will conduct the investigation,” the police said.

The girl’s father, while talking to the media, stated that three days ago, Prashant, who delivers newspapers, told them to vote for the Samajwadi Party (SP). “My daughter told him that we would vote for the BJP. Because of this, they took my daughter away and murdered her after raping her,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak said, “We have complained to the Election Commission several times that Samajwadi Party goons are threatening rural voters. In Karhal, they demonstrated the same by killing a Dalit girl.”

Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya posted on social media that the frustration and desperation of the Samajwadi Party was evident in the by-elections.

“The brutal murder of a Dalit girl in Karhal has exposed the SP’s reign of terror and dark deeds. Bogus voting, deployment of external disruptive elements, and baseless accusations against the Election Commission are part of SP’s ‘politics of loot,'” he wrote on ‘X’.