Out on bail, sexual assault accused shoots dead victim’s father in Hathras

A man, accused of sexual assault in July 2018, on Monday shot dead the father of the woman in Uttar Pradesh’s in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, said the police. A video went viral on the internet where the survivor was seen crying after her father was killed. 

The Hathras Police said that in the wee hours of Monday, an argument started between the family of the survivor and the family of the accused, who was jailed for a month in 2018 after the sexual assault case, outside a village, which ended up in the shooting incident, reported NDTV.  The survivor’s father succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital. 

Gaurav Sharma, the accused, was jailed in 2018 for a month after the survivor’s father filed a case of molestation against him. He was released from prison in 2018 after he was granted bail by a local court after a month of getting arrested.

“The man who died had filed a case against Gaurav Sharma in July 2018 for molestation. The accused went to jail and got bail after a month,” the Hathras Police chief, Vineet Jaiswal said in a video statement released on Twitter.

The survivor, in the video that went viral on social media, was seen crying, as she said in Hindi, “Please give me justice… please give me justice. First, he molested me and now he has shot my father. He had come to our village. There were six to seven people. My father had no enmity against anyone. His (accused) name is Gaurav Sharma.” The woman, was outside a police station in the video, demanding justice for her and her father.

Also Read | Have blocked links that incorrectly showed dead woman as Hathras rape victim: Facebook, Google, Twitter

One accused, who has been arrested, has been identified as Lalit Sharma. The Hathras Police on Twitter, in Hindi, said, “Prompt and necessary legal action is being taken by the police by arresting the murder accused Lalit Sharma in the incident in village Naujarpur of Sasni area. Remaining accused will also be arrested soon.”

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath has directed authorities to take strict actions in the matter, and he has also asked the officials to invoke the National Security Act against all accused in the case.

The incident comes a few months after the gangrape and murder case of 19-year-old Dalit woman last year, a death case that sparked nationwide outrage.