Unnao rape case: body of eyewitness exhumed to determine cause of death

The body of Yunus Khan, the only person who saw the father of a gangrape victim in village Makhi of Unnao district being beaten up, was exhumed on Saturday night in the presence of the police force and senior administrative officers for postmortem.

Not being able to prevent the police from doing so, Khan's family members rushed to Lucknow and protested in front of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's official residence. Dubbing it against Islam, they poured petrol and tried to immolate themselves. But the police foiled their plan and detained them for a few hours.

The younger brother of the gangrape victim's father, who had died of injuries in Unnao jail on April 9, alleged that Kuldeep Singh Sengar, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA of Bangermau and his younger brother Jai Deep Singh Sengar had got Khan killed to weaken the cases against them.

Sengar is in jail along with his five aides for his involvement in gangrape of a girl on June 4, 2017, at his bungalow in Makhi. His brother is also in prison for beating her father on April 3, 2018, to prevent him from filing the gangrape case. The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed chargesheets in both the cases.

The uncle of the gangrape victim had written to the CBI and the police on August 20, 2018, two days after the death of Khan, claiming that it was a murder in which Sengar brothers were involved and the body should be exhumed for postmortem.

“His body was quietly buried for mysterious reasons. I have come to know that Jan Mohammed, the youngest among the six brothers of Khan had visited the BJP legislator’s house two days after his brother’s death. This creates doubt in our minds that the MLA is somehow linked to the death,” alleged the uncle.

Khan, a grocery shopkeeper, had reportedly seen Jai Deep and his goons beating up the father of the gangrape victim. Instead of helping the father, the police had booked him in a false case under the Arms Act and sent him to jail, where he had died after six days.

Khan’s wife, Sabina Khatun, had said on August 20 that her husband had died of illness. “He had cirrhosis of the liver and has been under treatment since 2014. We don’t want the police to exhume his body,” she said on Saturday evening.

Devendra Kumar Pandey, DM of Unnao, said, “The postmortem of Khan is only option we have to find out the reason of his death.”

The gangrape victim told local reporters that the BJP lawmaker was conspiring against them from prison.

“The MLA is a criminal. He can easily kill any person in Unnao. He is constantly mounting pressure on us to withdraw the case. We are fighting this battle despite knowing that our lives are in danger,” she said.