1. The Congress will hold “satyagrah” in state and district headquarters across the country on Monday to demand justice for the family of the Dalit woman who died on September 29 after brutal torture and gangrape by four upper-caste Thakur men in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh. In a statement, Congress leader KC Venugopal said the incident has shaken the conscience of the country. He also criticised the state police for the “casual and cavalier attitude” in taking cognisance of the woman’s complaints and delay in providing her immediate medical attention.
  2. A former Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Rajveer Pahalwan on Sunday called a meeting of upper caste members at his home in Hathras district to support the accused, claiming they were not guilty. Pahalwan added that the Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry will “reveal the truth about the incident”. The members of the upper caste community also raised concern about the woman’s family refusing to take narco-analysis, also known as lie-detector tests.
  3. Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad marched to meet the family of the Dalit woman after his car was stopped about 20 km before Hathras by the police. Azad demanded Y security cover for the family and an inquiry monitored by a retired Supreme Court judge.
  4. The Editors Guild of India criticised the Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh for preventing media from reporting on the Hathras case developments and for tapping phone conversations of journalists covering the incident.
  5. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati called for action against Hathras District Magistrate Praveen Laxkar. The demand came in view of a video of Laxkar where he can be heard issuing a veiled threat to the woman’s father, asking him to soften his stance about the case. Vadra demanded that the district magistrate be immediately removed and his role in the matter be investigated. Meanwhile, Mayawati questioned how an impartial investigation be conducted by the Adityanath administration if Laxkar is still posted there.
  6. National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma said it was “illegal and unfortunate” for Bharatiya Janata Party IT Cell head Amit Malviya to have shared a video on Twitter of the woman, in which she is heard saying that she had been strangled as she resisted her perpetrators. Sharma added that she will personally speak to Malviya and the state police. “If it turns out that she was a rape victim, then the NCW will take the issue forward to its logical end,” she said.
  7. Bharatiya Janata Party’s MLA from Uttar Pradesh Surendra Singh said that the parents of young women must inculcate good values in them to stop incidents of rape. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi criticised his comments and tweeted: “This is the filthy RSS male chauvinist mentality at work. Men do the raping but women need to be taught good values.”
  8. The medico-legal report of the Hathras gangrape complainant, prepared by the hospital in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, where she was first admitted, has shown that doctors had recorded “complete penetration of the vagina” and the use of force in their preliminary exam. The report from Aligarh’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital contradicts the Uttar Pradesh police’s claim that the woman was not raped, which was based on swab samples taken several days after the crime occurred.
  9. Rashtriya Lok Dal activists protested and blocked roads in different places in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district after the state police baton-charged party leader Jayant Chaudhary when he had gone to meet the woman’s family.
  10. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi accused the Uttar Pradesh government of trying to hide the rape incident. The DMK will take out a candle light march towards the Raj Bhavan on Monday to demand justice for the woman. Meanwhile, the Left parties will protest in West Bengal on Tuesday.