India News | We Demand That the Culprits Be Hanged: Parents of 13-yr-old Dalit Girl Raped, Killed in Gurgaon

New Delhi, Aug 31 (PTI) "Mother I am fine and doing well", a 13-year-old girl, who was raped and killed in Gurgaon, told her mother in Delhi during their last conversation over phone 15 days ago.

The girl's father has alleged that his landlady's brother Praveen Verma, along with others, killed his daughter when she had gone to his house in the Haryana city.

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She was taken there by the landlady as her sister-in-law had given birth, he said in his complaint to the Narela police station here.

"We trusted them. This was the first time she was going out alone. She never even went out to play. I thought my daughter would be safe and I trusted my landlord's wife," said the Dalit girl's mother, who works as a domestic help and is a resident of Narela in north Delhi.

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The perpetrators must be hanged, said the grieving parents as they demanded justice.

"Mummy main theek hoon… mujhe yahan achche se rakha hai (Mother I am fine here and they are taking care of me). Those were her words,” the mother said recalling her last conversation with the 13-year-old.

“I thought my daughter was safe. I had never sent my daughter anywhere. They (landlords) were like family. But, I didn't know that my daughter would be no more," she said.

On the father's complaint, a case under sections 302 (murder) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, and provisions of the SC/ST Act was registered at Narela. But more sections were added after the Gurgaon Police said that sexual assault was confirmed in the postmortem report.

In the FIR registered with police, the girl's father said, "On July 17, my landlord's wife said that her sister-in-law has given birth to a child and she was taking my daughter along with her to her brother's home in Gurgaon. She also said that my daughter would stay there and could play with the daughter of her brother."

However, around 3 pm on August 23, the father was informed by his landlord that his daughter has died, the FIR states.

Around 7 pm, they took the body in a private ambulance to the girl's Narela residence for cremation, the FIR stated.

When the father got suspicious, he made a call and Narela police station staff reached the spot, and took the body to the Babu Jagjivan Ram hospital in Jahangirpuri, it stated.

Verma has been arrested and investigation is underway, police said.

Demanding justice for their daughter, the parents said they do not know what happened to her, but wanted the truth to come out so that they know how their daughter died.

The girl, a class VII student, has three siblings and she was interested in studies and wanted to earn a living for herself. But owing to lockdown and lack of a smart phone, she and her siblings were not able to attend online classes for the last one year, an acquaintance said.

Recalling how responsible her daughter was, the mother said, "I do not have a phone but my husband has one. It is not a smart phone though. My daughter was the eldest of all and took charge of the house while I and my husband went out for work. My daughter wanted to pursue studies and become successful.”

“But owing to our circumstances, she could not attend online classes...she was an active girl and took care of her siblings and helped them with their studies. She cooked food for them," she said.

The father said they had been trying to contact her to get her home for Raksha Bandhan.

"Every time, my wife tried to contact her through my landlord's mother, they either said she was sleeping or busy playing. I never got a chance to speak to my daughter ever since she left for Gurgoan," he said.

The girl's family hails from Muzaffarpur in Bihar and have had the same landlord for the past two years.

The landlord and his wife are at large.

A delegation of Delhi Congress led by its president Anil Kumar on Tuesday met the deceased's family and demanded the government to provide protection and financial help to them.

According to police, the landlady's brother Praveen Verma was arrested on the complaint of the girl's father who made a call when the accused allegedly tried to force the family to cremate the body.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)