So what's new? Why the indignation?

Another gang rape in India, this time in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh (UP), followed by the usual attempts to cover up using police brutality. The first attempt of the administration is to try and hush things up by terrorising the family of the victim and make them change their story if possible. To that end, the entire village was barricaded by the police, the family was forbidden from speaking to anyone and journalists and opposition politicians, trying to score political points from the brutalized dead woman, were roughed up. The village has been placed under curfew but a boy apparently escaped through a tortuous route and claimed that the police had seized the family's phones, had sealed up the house so that no one could talk to journalists and had kicked the father of the victim in the chest. One officer tried to discredit the victim's story of rape and the police cremated the girl's body in the dead of night without permission or presence of the family. The police in UP are outlaws, said an editorial in The Indian Express. "The lines between those whose responsibility it is to uphold the law and those who break it have been blurring dangerously in UP. Here, the police routinely invites allegations of conducting itself as an arm of ruling party, and not the state." Are the police really a bunch of thugs? "Probably the single biggest problem facing the police is shortage of personnel," wrote Prof Kanti Bajpai. "The UP police is at roughly 50% of sanctioned strength, both at officer and constable level." They are poorly trained, work 14-18 hours a day, often without holidays, and in terrible conditions. The response of the UP government has been to recruit a Mumbai-based public relations firm Concept PR to issue a denial of cover up and a veiled warning to journalists to stay away. At last, unable to contain the international attention, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has invited the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate. UP is perhaps following the example set by the Central government in Delhi when police beat up teachers and students of Jawaharlal Nehru Unviersity (JNU) protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). "Indian police 'committed serious human rights violations' during deadly religious riots in Delhi earlier this year, Amnesty International alleges." Amnesty International has been duly punished and forced to get out of India. The present reaction of UP police is almost a replica of what happened in Unnao in UP in 2017 when a 17 year old girl was raped by the local politician. Politicians have no interest in reforming the police despite a landmark Supreme Court judgement in 2006, wrote former police officer Prakash Singh. Police are there to keep us in check so that we obey Dear Leader without question. As well as his lackeys.