The body of a 14-year-old Dalit girl bearing stab wounds was found in Tiwaripur village in Bhadohi town in Uttar Pradesh, PTI reported. The police also said that her head had been bashed in with stones.

Superintendent of Police Ram Badan Singh said that the girl had gone out in the afternoon, but when she did not return for a long time, her brother went looking for her and found the body in a field. The body has been sent for autopsy, Singh said.

The police suspect that the child was raped, NDTV reported. “This would become clear when the postmortem report is in,” the police officer said.

Senior police officers reached the village with personnel, and a search is on to nab the culprits, Singh asserted.

Hathras incident

The incident occurred on the heels of the alleged rape and murder of a 20-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh last week. The woman’s death on Tuesday evoked grief and anger across the country.

Two weeks ago, the woman was tortured and allegedly raped by four upper caste men. The woman died on Tuesday at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. She had suffered multiple fractures and other serious injuries when the four accused raped her in her village on September 14. The four men were arrested.

However, the police hastily cremated the woman against the wishes of her family, which led to outrage in political circles. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi left for Hathras this morning, but were stopped near Greater Noida, where Rahul Gandhi was detained. He also alleged that he had been pushed and baton-charged by the police.

In the evening, the siblings were released from detention and escorted back to New Delhi. Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh Police claimed that the forensic laboratory report of the girl showed that she was not raped.