An Indian man who was arrested after accusing a ruling party official of raping his teenage daughter has died in police custody, prompting outrage and calls for an independent investigation. The day before the man died, his daughter had gone to Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, doused herself in kerosene and tried to self-immolate in protest against the alleged unwillingness of police to pursue her allegations. Uttar Pradesh is a state of 200 million residents with poverty and malnutrition levels close to those of sub-Saharan Africa and a reputation for lawlessness. The allegations have shocked Indians and prompted renewed scrutiny of the power wielded by politicians in small-town India.

The mother of the girl, who court documents say is 15, has alleged in a handwritten note to police that her daughter was raped on 9 June last year by two men one of whom was Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a member of the Uttar Pradesh parliament with the ruling Bharatiya Janata party. Her family had been unsuccessfully trying to convince police to register a case against the politician for months until last Tuesday, when the family allege Singh Sengar and his brother Atul Singh Sengar barged into their home at about 6pm with a group of men. “My two young girls were molested and when my husband protested he was tied to a tree and was beaten,” the woman alleged in her note.(theguardian)…[+]