The girl's body was taken to the CPM trade union's office this morning
There was chaos at Kolkata's Neemtala Ghat crematorium for nearly three hours this morning, where the city's police were locked in battle with the father of a 16-year-old girl who died yesterday after setting herself afire last week.
The girl was allegedly gang-raped twice by the same set of men in October and killed herself after two months of torment by friends of the men arrested for allegedly raping her.
Her father, a taxi driver and member of the CPM trade union - the Centre of Indian Trade Unions or CITU - wanted to cremate the teen's body only after carrying it in a protest procession. There have been protests in the city since yesterday over the girl's death.
The father, who spent a harrowing night fighting cops over his daughter's body, reached the crematorium at 7 this morning. At around 8, CITU members tried to take the body to their office, but the police put up barricades at the crematorium. Two hours later, the cops allowed the body to be taken away.
The CITU says it has now dropped an earlier plan to take out a protest procession with the body. It will be sent for cremation later this afternoon, and a procession will proceed towards Dharamtala in central Kolkata, nearly three kilometres away, at the same time.
The girl's family alleges that when the body was being taken to a mortuary on Tuesday evening, cops intercepted the hearse and forced it to drive to the cremation ground. They alleged that the policemen tried to cremate the body, but could not as they did not have the death certificate.
Five hours later, at 2.30 am, the cops brought the body back to the girl's home, the family said.
The cops have rejected the family's allegations. They say the girl's body was taken to the crematorium yesterday only after the family's consent.
The father of the girl met the Governor a little before noon today to lodge his complaint against the police. He has also filed a complaint of medical negligence against the superintendent of the hospital where the girl was admitted.
The distraught parents have demanded the death sentence for the rapists and for those who tormented the teen so much that she killed herself.
The girl set herself afire on December 23 when no one else was home.