Fourth day of protests in India following the alleged rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in New Delhi

(CNN) – Hundreds of people protested this Wednesday in New Delhi, the capital of India, for the fourth day in a row, as outrage continues to grow over the alleged rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl belonging to one of the most oppressed castes in the country.

The protesters marched with posters demanding accountability for the girl’s death. “We want justice,” they chanted, with banners reading: “Justice for the daughter of India.”

The 9-year-old girl’s parents also attended the protests, sitting on a makeshift stage with supporters from their village. The girl’s mother sobbed and screamed, sometimes asking for her daughter to “come back.”

Towards the end of the morning, the police estimated that there were about 80 protesters. However, the crowd quickly grew, and a CNN team at the scene estimated that there were more than 300 people. Police confirmed that 200 security personnel had been deployed at the protest site.

The most oppressed group in India’s caste system

The 9-year-old girl – a member of the Dalit community, the most oppressed group in the Hindu caste hierarchy system – had fetched water from a crematorium in New Delhi on Sunday, according to Ingit Pratap Singh, a senior police official. from the capital, citing a statement from the victim’s mother.

After the girl did not return for half an hour, the crematorium priest, Radhey Shyam, 55, called the mother and showed her the body of her deceased daughter, Singh said.

“The girl was lying on a bench, her mother was told to look, her lips were blue and her body burned from the lips to the wrist,” Singh said. The mother was told that her daughter had been electrocuted while trying to fetch water.

Shyam and three other crematory employees convinced the mother to cremate the body, claiming it would be a nuisance to involve the police, Singh said. The girl’s body was cremated, with her parents present.

But the incident sparked protests in her village, and after the parents returned home, some 200 neighbors rallied demanding justice.

Four men arrested

That same night, the police arrested four men allegedly implicated in the girl’s death. They have not yet been charged, but authorities have placed them on remand for two weeks, Singh said. The police are investigating the crime as an incident of caste violence, and are also investigating allegations of rape brought by the victim’s family and other villagers.

Since the girl’s body has already been mostly cremated, coroners “could not determine anything based on the remaining parts of the body” during the postmortem examination, Singh said Wednesday. Forensic units are now analyzing other evidence, such as bodily fluids present on the girl’s clothing, to “determine if there was some type of spill that was used in the sexual assault,” he said.

In the social hierarchy based on the castes of India, Dalits are those who belong to oppressed castes, and in the past they were called “untouchables”. They suffer severe discrimination and are often victims of violence and sexual assault.

India’s caste system was officially abolished in 1950, but the 2,000-year social hierarchy imposed on people by birth continues to exist in many aspects of life. The caste system classifies Hindus at birth, defining their place in society, the jobs they can do, and who they can marry.

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of New Delhi, tweeted a statement Tuesday night after facing accusations of silence. “The murder of the 9-year-old girl in New Delhi after being raped is extremely shameful,” he wrote, calling for the death penalty for the perpetrators. “I will meet with the victim’s family tomorrow and do everything I can to help them in this fight for justice.”

Shaktisinh Gohil, a MP from India’s main Congress party, has called for the incident to be discussed during the current parliamentary session.

Dalit women in danger

The protests began Sunday night in the area where the rape occurred, but have grown as anger spread.

On Tuesday, protesters burned effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as anger grew at his silence on the matter and the perception that the government does not protect young women from the persistent problem of rape in the country.

Among the protesters were men, women and children, some of whom wore masks with a cross on their mouths to signify the silence of the country’s leaders.

“My relatives live in the same village as the girl,” Anil Kumar, 46, said at Wednesday’s protest. “It’s complete anarchy in New Delhi. A 9-year-old girl was raped and the administration was sleeping.”

“We want the harshest punishment for the accused, the government should set an example,” he added. “Women’s safety cannot be taken lightly.”

Savita Sheel, a resident of the neighborhood where the incident occurred, said she was “shocked” when she found out.

“If these things happen next to an army cantonment, how can you be calm about the safety of women in the national capital?” He asked, referring to the Indian army headquarters, the military houses and the hospital of the base were in the same area.

The victim’s mother told CNN on Wednesday that she wanted justice to be done for her daughter’s death. “My daughter was a very good daughter, she was a lovely daughter,” he said through tears.

Opposition politicians and activists have taken to Twitter to highlight the problem of sexual violence against women and caste atrocities, which have persisted for decades despite concerted efforts to combat the problem.

“The daughter of a Dalit is also the daughter of the nation”, tweeted on Tuesday Rahul Gandhi, MP and former chairman of India’s main opposition party.

Alarming statistics

According to National Crime Records Bureau of IndiaIn the latest available figures for 2019, more than 32,000 cases of alleged rape were reported, that is, one rape approximately every 17 minutes. But experts say the true figure is likely much higher, due to the embarrassment of reporting sexual assault and the fact that victims face social barriers.

The figure shoots up if other crimes against women are taken into account, such as sexual harassment, voyeurism, attempted rape or other types of aggression.

Those from the lower and oppressed castes – some 201 million of India’s 1.3 billion people, according to government figures – are especially vulnerable, say human rights activists and organizations.

In 2019, almost 46,000 cases of crimes against oppressed castes were reported, of which 3,486 were registered as rapes, according to the crime registry office.

Several similar cases sparked nationwide outrage and protests last October, when a 22-year-old dalit woman she died of serious injuries sustained in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after being allegedly gang-raped. The same day, another 19-year-old Dalit woman died in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh after being allegedly gang-raped and strangled by upper-caste men in another incident, and her body was allegedly cremated without the family’s consent.

The month before, another Dalit girl from 13 years old she was raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh, sparking new anger among the community.

Indian rape laws have been amended several times in the past decade, after a series of highly publicized rapes and killings brought to light the scandalous rates of sexual assault in India. However, activists claim that existing laws still fail to protect women, and many of the problems associated with the rape crisis in India continue.

“Sometimes our sisters are forcibly burned in Hathras and sometimes in Delhi,” he said Monday in Twitter Chandra Shekhar Azad, leader of the prominent Dalit rights group Bhim Army. “Our fight will continue until we get justice.”