Trigger warning: Graphic discussions on rapeNew Delhi: The postmortem report of a 22-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped and died due to injuries suffered in the assault by two men in Balrampur district of Uttar Pradesh does not mention vaginal injuries and records the cause of death as ‘shock and haemorrhage’.According to The Print, the report says the woman sustained 10 injuries – both contusions and abrasions – on various parts of her body, including her right breast and thigh. A contusion is a bruise that forms due to bleeding under the skin, when capillaries are ruptured. Abrasions are external injuries caused by blunt objects. The injuries suggest the woman was assaulted with a blunt object, the report says.“The post-mortem report does not mention any vaginal injuries or fractures, but does show her hymen was ruptured,” the Print report says, adding that the report says that the immediate cause of death is shock and haemorrhage.The 22-year-old woman was allegedly raped by two men on September 29 in Gesadi village of Balrampur. Both the accused have been arrested. The FIR registered on the basis of a complaint registered by the woman’s family says she was missing for the whole day and returned home in an e-rickshaw in a semi-conscious state. She died on the way to a hospital in Lucknow.The Balrampur case piled more pressure on the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, where the death of a Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped in Hathras district caused widespread outrage. NCRB data released earlier this week showed that UP recorded the second-highest number of rape cases in the country in 2019. The data also shows that 18% of rape victims in UP are Dalit women.‘No presence of semen’The report does not mention ‘vaginal rupture’ or any other internal injuries to the victim’s genital region. The doctor who did the autopsy told The Print that the woman did not have a vaginal rupture. The doctor added that an initial examination did not reveal the “presence of semen in or close to the vagina”, but said sexual assault cannot be ruled out yet.The victim’s hymen was ruptured and a “mild hemorrhagic clot” was observed in the vagina, the postmortem report says. “We are carrying out the examination, taking opinions and not ruling out anything at this stage,” the doctor told The Print.In the Hathras case too, the police said the presence of semen was not detected. The medical report does not confirm rape, the police said, claiming that the matter was ‘twisted’ to stir caste tension.However, former DGP of Kerala N.C. Asthana told The Wire on Thursday that the presence of semen in the vaginal tract “has never been considered necessary to constitute rape”. He added:“According to the definition of rape as amended by the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013, penetration of the vagina by the penis in the conventional sense of intercourse is not at all necessary to constitute the offence of rape. Now, insertion, to any extent, of any object or a part of the body into the vaginal urethra, or anus of a woman also constitutes rape.”