Backing Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s claim that women were molested in Uttar Pradesh’s Bhatta-Parsaul village, the National Commission for Women (NCW) Saturday demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter.
“Our team recently went to Bhatta-Parsaul village where they claimed to have seen the bones of human beings. We have prepared a preliminary report which states that the women in the village have been molested and sexually assaulted but for now we cannot say that they have been raped,” NCW chairperson Yasmin Abrar told reporters here.
The women rights body would be submitting their report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she added.
“We need CBI enquiry into the matter and we do not believe the forensic investigation done by the government in Agra,” Abrar said.
An 11-member team comprising retired judges, lawyers, social activists, civil society members and some NCW members would be visiting the village in a couple of days. The village in Greater Noida, near the Indian capital, has become the epicentre of the movement against land acquisition for an expressway project.
Rahul Gandhi had staged a daylong sit-in to back the farmers’ demand for higher compensation after a clash had seen four people, including two policemen, being killed.
Gandhi had also met Manmohan Singh with a delegation of farmers from Bhatta-Parsaul and handed over pictures of ashes with bones, injured people and ransacked houses. He had quoted villagers speaking of ‘mass murders, repression and rapes’ by the police in the village.
