Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra arrived in Hathras to meet the family 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly gang-raped and tortured by four men on September 14. She died at a Delhi hospital on Tuesday night.

The UP Police allowed only five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, to meet the family, citing imposition of Section 144 in the area. 

While a high drama unfolded in the national capital and the case continued to find wide resonance, a Hathras administration official said the Special Investigation Team had completed its preliminary probe into the death and alleged gangrape of the 19-year-old woman.

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The administration on Saturday removed barricades outside her village to allow the media to meet her family. But scores of police personnel in riot gear lined up at the Delhi-Noida Direct flyway to prevent the Congress convoy from moving to Hathras, about 180 km away.

The Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogans and Congress flags fluttering in the air. The Congress workers – some who described what happened as “brutal repression” — claimed police used batons to disperse the crowd, reported PTI.

On Thursday, both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were detained on Thursday when they tried to go to Hathras.

“CrPC Section 144 has been imposed in Noida, Greater Noida as well as in Hathras and some other districts in Uttar Pradesh due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Considering social distancing and other related norms, permission has been granted for five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra,” Noida Police Commissioner Alok Singh told PTI.

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The Dalit teen succumbed to her grievous injuries in the early hours of Tuesday in a Delhi hospital, a fortnight after she was attacked, and cremated in the dead of night near her home on Wednesday. Her family alleged they were forced by local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites, triggering outrage nationwide and protests in several places.

On Thursday, the Hathras administration had clamped prohibitory orders and scuffles broke out as politicians, including from the Congress and the TMC, as well as the media tried to access the village. About 300 police personnel stood on guard to prevent anybody from entering.

The death of the young woman, whose brutal assault recalled for many the horrors of the Nirbhaya case, continued to snowball into a major political issue As the Congress delegation from Delhi prepared to make its way to Hathras, its Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and more than 500 workers were put under house arrest, the party alleged.

In Varanasi, a group of Congress workers blocked the Union minister Smriti Irani’s cavalcade. Congress spokesperson Lalan Kumar said protesting party workers, who raised anti-government slogans and demanded justice for the woman’s family, were later arrested.

Addressing a press conference, the Women and Child Development minister accused the opposition of playing politics on the Hathras issue.

“The victim will get justice. I have spoken to the chief minister. Once the SIT submits its report, the chief minister will take action against the accused,” Irani told reporters.

Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by October 14.