Today, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav slammed the Uttar Pradesh government for challenging a high court order to relocate and provide employment to the family of the Hathras woman found dead after the alleged rape, and said their "harassment" was like "mental rape".

The state government's plea challenging the Allahabad High Court order was dismissed by the Supreme Court on Monday. While dismissing the petition of the state government, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala had expressed surprise over the fact that the state had filed an appeal against a high court order.

"The family of 'Hathras ki Beti' is now being made to run by the BJP government, which made false promises of job and relocation. This harassment and humiliation is no less than mental rape or 'manobal ki hatya'," Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi with the hashtag "Hathraskibeti".

The state government had submitted that it is ready to relocate the victims' family members but they want to be shifted to either Noida or Ghaziabad or Delhi. Also, Additional Advocate General (AAG) of Uttar Pradesh Garima Prashad said that this is a question of law whether the elder, married brother could be regarded as a "dependent".

The high court had noted that the majority of the population in the village belonged to the upper castes and it is stated that the family, which belonged to a Scheduled Caste, was always targeted by other villagers and even after being under the security of the CRPF, whenever the family members went out, they were subjected to abuse and objectionable comments.

In that backdrop, the court had directed the government to relocate the family within the state.