In Videos, Victim Said She Was Raped, Strangled When Resisted

3 Clips Now Part Of CBI’s Hathras Investigations

- Anuja Jaiswal

Agra: At least thrice before she died, the 19-year-old Dalit girl from Hathras had said she had been raped. “Zabardasti” is the word that recurs in all three videos TOI is in possession of, in which she repeats the same harrowing account. This is how they are, she had said, and they had attempted this before.

In the first, a 48-second video shot on September 14, she is lying on the floor outside the Chandra police station, flies hovering and ants crawling about her. “They strangled me,” she says. A man asks why. She hesitates. Asked again, she answers, “I didn’t let them force themselves on me.” The man asks again, “Why did they strangle you?” She repeats, “Because I resisted.” When asked if she has any other injuries, she sticks out her tongue, full of gashes.