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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday filed a chargesheet against four people before a special court here in connection with a case related to the murder and alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman.

The chargesheet was filed before a special SC/ST court in Lucknow. The CBI had, on December 16, submitted before the Allahabad High Court that a chargesheet will be filed by December 18 in the matter.

The handling of the case by Uttar Pradesh Police - particularly the suspicious late-night cremation of the victim allegedly without the family's approval - led to angry protests across the country. The officials, however, said the cremation was done "as per the wishes of the family".

The Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar had even said that the woman’s postmortem report showed that she died of neck injuries. “The FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) report hasn’t found sperm in samples, making it clear that some people twisted the matter to stir caste-based tension,” he told reporters.

The chargesheet by CBI has been filed under Sections 354, 376 A, 376 D and 302 of IPC and SC/ST Act.
The CBI looked into the role of the four men who were also put through different forensic tests at the Forensic Science Laboratory in Gandhinagar.

Investigators had also met doctors at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, where the victim was treated after the alleged gangrape on September 14, before she was brought to Delhi.

It is clear that the UP police was trying to hide not only the fact that the woman was raped but also that it was a caste-based crime and they tried to suppress the matter as much as they could.

Following huge backlash, CM Yogi Adityanath ordered CBI probe into this case and now it has come to light that everything claimed by the UP Police was wrong.

The four accused are Sandeep, 20; his uncle Ravi, 35; and their friends Ramu, 26, and Luvkush, 23.

The case was investigated by the Ghaziabad branch of the CBI. The agency had told the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court Wednesday that it would file a charge sheet in the Hathras case by Friday.