Centre seeks report on Meerut gang rape, conversion case

The union home ministry has sought a report from the Uttar Pradesh government on the charges of a girl in Meerut that she was first gang raped and then forced to convert to Islam, a state home department official said Wednsday.

The central government, expressing its deep concern over the allegations, has also asked the Akhilesh Yadav govrnment to probe the matter threadbare.

A young girl from Hapur, who taught at a local madarasa had gone missing some time back as she was returning from duty. She resurfaced in Meerut Sunday and alleged that she was kidnapped by a group of men who first gang raped her and then forcibly converted her to Islam.

She also claimed that more than 50 girls were being held captive in a madarsa at Muzaffarnagar.

Meerut MP Rajendra Agarwal has termed the matter as very serious and raised it with senior BJP leaders.

K. Satyanarayan, deputy inspector general of police (DIG) Meerut, said that the girl claimed she was raped June 29 and that a surgical procedure to "terminate pregnancy" was carried out on her at a private hospital July 23.

He added that a probe is continuing and hoped that the people behind the crime will be arrested soon.

State BJP president Laxmikant Bajpayi visited the victim at her village home late Tuesday and supported the request made by the family for a CBI probe.

Vijay Bahadur Pathak, state BJP spokesman, said the matter was very grave and the state government should probe it threadbare.

"The fact that such things are happening in western UP, already communally sensitive, is a very serious matter but sadly the Akhilesh Yadav government continues to be in denial mode and officials are not acting but fudging facts," he said.

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has already called for a detailed probe into the matter and alleged that the state government has completely lost control on law and order.

Samajwadi Party (SP) Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, meanwhile, has said that the government was probing the matter and assured that if the charges were found to be true, no one would be spared.

Leaders of the ruling Samajwadi Party, however, allege that "communal forces are at work, trying to disrupt harmony in the state" with an eye on the forthcoming bypolls for 12 state assembly seats.

Rajendra Chowdhary, a cabinet minister and state spokesman of the SP, said the government will deal with such incidents sternly.

-- Indo-Asian News Service

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