Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the State police were denying that the 19-year-old victim in the Hathras gang rape and murder case  had been raped as “she was no one” to them.

Mr. Gandhi was responding to a news report about the Uttar Pradesh police denying that the victim had been raped. He tweeted: “The shameful truth is many Indians don’t consider Dalits, Muslims and Tribals to be human. The CM & his police say no one was raped because for them, and many other Indians, she was NO ONE. (sic).”

The young Dalit woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by four men in her village last month. She succumbed to her injuries two weeks later at a hospital in Delhi.

Following a national outrage over the manner in which the Uttar Pradesh police and the local administration had cremated her body without the consent of her family, top Congress leaders including Mr. Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Hathras on October 3.

Terming the Yogi Adityanath government as insensitive and anti-Dalit, the Congress has been demanding a judicial inquiry into the incident.

“According to the family of the victim, the district Magistrate meted out the worst treatment to them. So, who is protecting him? He should be dismissed without any delay and his role should be investigated. When the family is demanding a judicial inquiry, why is the Special Investigation Team probing and that too after a CBI inquiry was announced,” asked Ms. Vadra on twitter last week after meeting the family.