Representational Image, credit: PTI
Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh): A fortnight after she was gang-raped and left paralyzed by four upper caste men, the 19-year-old Dalit died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday.
She had been shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi after her condition worsened on Monday evening.
On September 14, she had gone to collect cattle fodder when she was dragged away by dupatta around her neck to a filed, injuring her spinal cord.
When held down, she apparently bit her own tongue, causing a deep cut, according to IANS.
A week after she was hospitalised, the girl told the police that she had been raped by four men and named them.
All four accused-- Sandip, Ramu, Lavkush and Ravi -- were arrested for gang rape, attempt to murder and under sections of the SC/ST Act.
The youngest of five siblings, the victim was on life support for sometime and was shifted to Delhi on Monday on her father's request.
Her father had told reporters on Sunday that the families of the four accused have been threatening them for speaking out.
The girl had also told her family that the four men had threatened her with dire consequences if she informed anyone about the incident.
Fakhrul Hoda, head of neurosurgery at the Aligarh hospital where she was being treated, told reporters that "Surgery to fix her spine could only have been done after her condition improved. The damage to the spinal cord appeared to be permanent."
With inputs from IANS