Hundreds of protesters, including politicians, lawyers and even an actor-activist, gathered in the centre of New Delhi Friday to protest the horrific gang-rape and murder of a Dalit woman and the alleged cover-up of the crime by local authorities in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state governed by the ruling BJP. 

The protest at Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory in downtown New Delhi, usually a haunt of tourists, was attended among others noted attorney Prashant Bhusan, actor Swara Bhasker, opposition leaders Brinda Karat and Sitaram Yechury, Saurabh Bharadwaj and hundreds of young protesters, mostly women, who defied the coronavirus scare to voice their protest against the continuing crimes against women, particularly belonging to the socially oppressed Dalit community.

Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad speaks as Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar looks on during a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on October 2, 2020 against the Hathras gang rape.

Chandrashekhar Azad, a leader of the Bhim Army, an organisation that supports Dalit causes and has militant supporters, had called for a protest at India Gate. But after the Delhi Police imposed restrictions on crowds in the area, Azad said the agitation had been shifted to Jantar Mantar, 3 km away. “I will visit #Hathras. Our struggle will continue till the time UP CM doesn't resign, and justice is served. I urge SC to take cognizance of the incident,” Azad was quoted by The Hindu as saying. 

Uttar Pradesh state is governed by a Hindu priest turned politician Yogi Adityanath, who is its chief minister, a rabid Hindu nationalist and a nominee of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were stopped and briefly detained while going to the meet the raped woman’s family, a four-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by senior party leader Derek O’Brien, was on Friday stopped by the police from going to the village of the 19-year-old gang-rape victim in Hathras of Uttar Pradesh.

The family of the Hathras victim has alleged that the district administration was intimidating them and not letting them leave their area in the village or talk to the media.

“Police have blockaded us from all sides, roofs, lanes, and in the village. They are not letting us out,” the victim’s brother told reporters. He was able to speak to the media after sneaking past the police cordon and taking a route through fields. 

The dead woman's body was cremated in the dead of the night by police, after being brought from a Delhi hospital, and the family was not allowed to receive the body or condole her death, leading to an outcry that the state administration was trying to suppress the truth about the crime and destroy evidence