While some early reports in Hindi and a New York Times article did not identify the victims to be from the Dalit caste, they were erroneously identified as being Dalit in a Reuter's report by Nita Bhalla on 29 May. It was later widely reported based on Reuters that they were not Dalit but in fact they were of the Maurya caste, which is in fact has same status as yadav. The central government asked the Uttar Pradesh state government why the stringent clauses of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST) were not applied when the accused were charged with raping and murdering the two girls in Badaun. The state government responded that per the report received from the Badaun district administration, the victims did not belong to SC/ST; they were from the Other Backward Class (OBC) community.
