印カースト最下層女性レイプ死、不手際で警察幹部ら５人に停職処分

【ニューデリーＡＦＰ＝時事】インドでカースト最下層のダリットの女性（19）が集団レイプされ死亡した事件で、捜査の不手際を理由に警察幹部ら5人が停職処分を受けた。事件を受け、インド全土では怒りの声が上がっており、数日にわたって抗議デモが続いている。（写真はインド・ニューデリーで行われた19歳女性のレイプ死に対する抗議デモでスローガンを叫ぶ参加者ら）
　北部ウッタルプラデシュ州のヨギ・アディティナット州首相は２日夜、ハトラス地区の警察長と他４人を停職処分にしたと発表。
　ヒンズー教の僧侶でナレンドラ・モディ首相とも近い関係のアディティナット氏はまた、犠牲者の遺族、容疑者、停職処分を受けた警察幹部ら全員が、うそ発見器と薬物検査を受ける予定だと明らかにした。
　女性は９月中旬に住んでいた村の近くで重体の状態で発見され、今週、ニューデリーの病院で死亡。警察は、上位カーストの男４人を集団レイプと殺人の疑いで逮捕した。
　しかし警察幹部は１０月１日、捜査報告書や検視結果によると女性はレイプされていなかったと主張。女性とその母親の話や、伝えられる病院の診断と食い違っており、さらなる怒りの声が巻き起こった。
　ニューデリー中心部で行われた２日夜の抗議集会には、デリー首都圏の首相やダリット出身の著名な政治家ら約５００人が参加した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/10/05-12:41）

Five senior police officers have been suspended over their handling of an investigation into the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman that has sparked outrage across India and triggered days of protests.
The seriously injured teenager from the disadvantaged Dalit caste was found in mid-September outside her village in northern India's Uttar Pradesh state and died this week in a New Delhi hospital.
The police have arrested four high-caste men on charges of gang-rape and murder.
But the police have faced criticism for cremating the woman's body in the middle of the night -- reportedly with the help of some petrol -- against the wishes of her family and religious custom.
A senior policeman on Thursday sparked further outrage after claiming that a forensic report and an autopsy had shown that the woman had not been raped.
This contradicts statements from the victim and her mother and reported hospital findings, while experts said the forensic test was carried out too long after the attack.
Hundreds of police have also barricaded the village, preventing the woman's family from leaving and journalists and opposition politicians from talking to them.
The family's mobile phones have also reportedly been seized.
The victim's brother told one Indian news channel that the family were scared for their lives. The local high court has ordered authorities to provide the family protection.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath late Friday announced the suspension of the Hathras district police chief and four others.
The Hindu monk and close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced that the victim's family, the accused and the suspended policemen would all undergo lie-detector and drug tests.
On Friday evening in the latest protest, around 500 people including the capital's chief minister and a prominent Dalit politician gathered in central New Delhi demanding justice.
We (women) are not actually free, even though India is independent, Sanskriti, one of the women at the Delhi protest site told AFP.
This is something I want to raise my voice against. And I just wish all the people get united and they understand that it is high time to do something about it, she added.
The young woman's death comes months after four men were hanged for the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi, in a case that came to symbolise India's epidemic of sexual violence.
An average of 87 rapes were reported in India every day last year, according to data by the National Crime Records Bureau, but large numbers are thought to go unreported.