‘Don’t shout’: Dalit child ‘raped, killed, forcibly burnt’ at Delhi crematorium
Tara (assumed name), a nine-year-old Dalit girl, was allegedly gangraped, murdered and forcibly cremated at the Delhi Cantt crematorium on August 1…. Radhey Shyam is a priest at the crematorium…. An hour later, when Tara didn’t return, her mother stepped out to see…. “I went in and found my baby lying there, dead,” she recalled. “Her lips were torn, her tongue was blue, her eyes would not close, and she had bruises on left arm. Her shirt and undies were wet. I couldn’t bear to look at her.”
In a moment, Radhey Shyam walked over and told her that Tara had been electrocuted while she was filling water. “I didn’t believe him,” she said. “Why were there so many bruises on her then?”…. Radhey Shyam locked the crematorium gate from the inside. “He told me, “Don’t shout. Don’t scream. What had to happen has happened. Now why are you screaming? Let’s finish this. And then he set my child on fire.”…
Radhey Shyam reportedly confessed to raping Tara. “First he said electrocution had killed her,” Nitin claimed. “But when we slapped him around a bit, he begged for forgiveness and said, ‘Yes, I made a mistake, please forgive me.'”…
