fficers in the country's biggest police force in Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the most fantastic script writers over the years. The most recent example is the barbaric and gruesome rape and murder of a young widow in Mohanlalganj on the outskirts of Lucknow.

The naked body of the 36-year-old widow was found in the compound of a government primary school on the morning of 17 July, near the village where former US President Bill Clinton's visit was scheduled on the same day. The victim's clothes lay in tatters nearby and her blood was found splattered in a classroom, across the veranda and near the hand pump in the premises. Her body bore several injury marks and her private parts had been brutally injured. Empty paan masala packets and beedi stubs were found strewn all around.

The victim was working as a lab attendant in the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) and had left house late in the night of 16 July after receiving a phone call. Three days after the incident, the UP police worked out a script which they related before the media.

ADG Sutapa Sanyal said that the woman was friendly with one Rajiv and had left her house after receiving a his call. She said that a security guard, Ram Sewak Yadav impersonated the identity of Rajiv and picked up the victim when she came out of the house. Since he was wearing a helmet, she mistook him for Rajiv and went with him. The ADG further stated that when they reached the school, he took off his helmet and the victim realised she had been duped. He tried to rape her and she resisted so he hit her with the keys of his motorbike and left her fatally wounded.

Sanyal insisted that it was a one-man operation even though she had earlier said that it was a case of gang rape. The ADG first told reporters that the victim's body would be preserved till investigations are over but the police had second thoughts and hurriedly cremated the body at midnight on 18 July, thereby removing any evidence that may have prevented a smooth cover-up.

The police, however, confessed that they had neither found the mobile phone of the victim that can reveal some truths and nor had they found the SIM card used by the security guard to call the woman. The police could not even trace the "character called Rajiv".

The post mortem report further thrashed the police theory when it stated that the victim had two kidneys. The woman had already donated one kidney to her husband who later died and the records in the SGPGIMS prove that she was the donor. So where did the extra kidney come from? Besides, the autopsy report states that the victim was about 25 years old but her actual age is 36 years.

The victim's father, who is now demanding a CBI probe, says, "It is clear that the police is trying to cover up the case because they know some influential people are involved in this. My daughter struggled so much before she died and I will fight to the end of my life for justice. The security guard is a mere pawn in the case." The truth in this case may never be known.

Meanwhile, some other cases "scripted" by the UP police are as follows:

* Madhumita murder, 2003: The police tried to shield former minister Amar Mani Tripathi who was involved in the murder of the poetess with whom he had an illicit relationship. The cops tried to implicate a student, Anuj Misra, who shared the same initials as the minister. The CBI later solved the case and Tripathi got a life term.

* Banda rape, 2010: Former BSP MLA Purshottam Naresh Dwiwedi was accused of raping and detaining a Dalit girl in Banda. The police accused the victim of being a thief and put her in jail. She was later rescued and the MLA was sent to jail.

* Lakhimpur Nighasan rape, 2011: A 14-year-old girl was found hanging by a tree in Nighasan police station and the police claimed that she had committed suicide. It was later found that the girl had been brought to the police station and raped by cops who later murdered her.