Authorities in Uttar Pradesh confirmed on Wednesday that a police officer had been arrested in connection with the alleged incident, which has sparked outrage in India as many accused the police of helping perpetuate a systemic culture of sexual violence.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a senior politician from India’s opposition Congress party, said wrote: “If police stations are not safe for women, where will they complain?”
An investigation is underway into the alleged incident at a police station in the state’s Lalitpur district. After his arrest, the officer at the center of the allegation told reporters he was innocent and called for an independent investigation. All officers on duty at the time of the alleged incident have been reprimanded and police say action will be taken against them if found guilty of a crime.
Separately, four men were arrested in April for allegedly kidnapping and raping the minor, according to police. They allegedly took the girl to the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh, where she was raped and held for four days, police said. A woman was also arrested in connection with the alleged incident, police said.
They were also accused of violating current Indian laws protecting minority castes, police said. The five have not been formally charged.
The girl belonged to India’s Dalit community, Lalitpur Police Additional Superintendent Girijesh Kumar told CNN on Thursday. The accused police officer is also a Dalit, Kumar said.
The alleged incident is the latest in a string of high-profile crimes against women and minorities across India and embodies what critics say is widespread internalized misogyny and support for patriarchal values.
More than 28,000 cases of alleged sexual assault against minors were reported in 2020, according to the latest figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau. However, activists believe the real number is much higher because rape is often underreported in other countries.
In a statement Wednesday, India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) described this month’s alleged incident as a “human rights abuse.”
Caste-based violence against women and girls
India’s 2,000-year-old caste system categorizes Hindus at birth, defining their status in society, what jobs they can hold and who they can marry.
It was officially abolished in 1950, but the social hierarchy still exists in many parts of the Hindu-majority nation.
According to government figures, Dalits make up around 201 million of India’s 1.3 billion population. They have been labeled the “untouchables” in the past and continue to face rampant discrimination, sexual violence and assaults.
A spate of violent crimes and sexual assaults against Dalit women and girls has sparked outrage in recent years.
In August last year, four men, including a Hindu priest, were charged with the rape and murder of a nine-year-old Dalit girl in the Indian capital, Delhi.
The incident followed the gang rape and death in September 2020 from a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh. Just a month earlier, another 13-year-old Dalit girl was raped and murdered in the state. In 2019, two Dalit children were reportedly beaten to death after defecating outdoors. And in 2018, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, a 13-year-old lower-caste girl was beheaded, allegedly by a higher-caste attacker.
Activists and opposition politicians say the crimes reflect an atmosphere of hatred fueled in part by a rise in hardline Hindu nationalism.
Sexual violence is used by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls, according to a 2020 report by the NGO Equality Now.
Her research found that Dalit women and girls in northern Haryana state are often denied access to justice in cases of sexual violence due to the “pervasive culture of impunity, particularly when perpetrators are from a dominant caste”.
The organization called on the government to ensure greater police accountability and effective law enforcement to protect caste-based minorities.
In March 2020, then-Junior Member of the Home Office G. Kishan Reddy, in a written response to Parliament, said the government had “a duty to ensure the protection” of people from marginalized castes. He added that the laws were amended in 2015 to strengthen both preventive and punitive measures for crimes against Dalits.