Hathras: UP Police files 19 cases including sedition, ‘international conspiracy’

Lucknow, Oct 05: The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday filed nineteen FIRs in the alleged gang rape in Hathras that lists sedition an "international conspiracy" and promoting religious hatred among other charges.

As per the initial reports, the charges listed on the FIR are sedition, conspiracy, inciting caste divides, religious discrimination, doctoring electronic evidence, a conspiracy against the state and defamation.

The development comes a day after Adityanath accused the Bharatiya Janata Party's political opponents of attempting to conspire against it by "trying to lay a foundation for caste and communal riots through international funding.

The chief minister made the remarks after nationwide anger and protests to demand justice for the family of the Dalit woman who died on September 29 after brutal torture and gangrape by four upper-caste Thakur men in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh.

"Our opponents are conspiring against us by trying to lay a foundation for caste and communal riots through international funding," Adityanath told ANI. "For last one week, Opposition parties were keen to see riots. We need to move forward amidst all these conspiracies."

"Anti-social and anti-nation elements find it difficult to accept state's development as they always wanted a riot-stricken Uttar Pradesh. So they are hatching conspiracies now," he further said.

Adityanath on Saturday announced that he is recommending a CBI probe into the Hathras case, amid a growing political storm over the death of the 19-year-old Dalit victim who was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped.

He also said that his government was "determined to ensure the harshest punishment" for those guilty in the entire incident.

The opposition parties have targeted the Adityanath government over the incident and the handling of the case.

The victim, who was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped on September 14, died of her grievous injuries in the early hours of Tuesday in a Delhi hospital and was cremated in the dead of night near her home on Wednesday, with her family alleging that they were hurried into carrying out her last rites by local police.