Source: Aradhna Wal, Tehelka
On 6 August 2012, a 14 or 15-years-old Dalit girl was allegedly abducted on her way to school and raped by two men, Ajay and Krishnen, from the Rodh community in the Kalsi village of the Karnal district in Haryana. The Rodhs or Rods are an agricultural dominant caste in Haryana similar to the Jats. The victim belonged to the Dhanuk caste, a Scheduled caste in Haryana. They were helped by a woman from the victim’s neighbourhood, who took the clothes she had been wearing when she was raped and washed them, and gloated about the loss of her honour to her mother.
The victim was supported by her parents, and especially her mother, who sought justice for her daughter in spite of opposition from the community and threats from the accused. On September 3, the victim’s mother went missing. However, when her father tried to file a complaint, Assistant Sub-Inspector Ram Prakash, who belonged to the same caste as the accused, allegedly refused to file a complaint. A complaint was written down on September 4 but many of the crucial details were excluded, and the FIR was finally registered on September 5, two hours before her body was found dumped in a canal. The victim’s mother had allegedly been raped, strangled with her chunni, and disfigured with acid by the same men.
When the victim and her father went to file the complaint for the rape and the murder, Ram Prakash reportedly tore up their complaint and threw it away, and insulted them for their caste. The complaint was finally filed when the Superintendent of Police intervened. Even then, since the clothes she had been wearing during the rape had been washed, the police took the clothes she had worn to the police station that day and filed it as evidence, no doubt to discredit the case during trial. To Manisha Devi, an activist from All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM) and National Confederation of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR) who had accompanied them to the police station, one of the police offers said that such problems would only end when there are no Dalit women left. Manisha Devi quoted him as saying, “Yeh sab khatam ho jaani chahiyen” (These women should cease to exist).
The family faced ostracization from their own community, due to the implication of their Dalit neighbour in the case, as well as economic boycott from the Rodhs, due to which the victim’s father was left without a livelihood in the village. They received threats from the accused, as well as pressure from the panchayat to withdraw their complaints. The victim was also kicked out from her school. She later became an activist associated with AIDMAM and Dalit Women Fight, and she wrote that during her work she was faced by further victim blame, with people calling her casteist slurs and questioning her moral character.
References:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Year-on-rape-survivors-father-approaches-SC-for-justice/articleshow/22109790.cms
https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/44/review-womens-studies-review-issues/rape-atrocity-contemporary-haryana.html
https://wssnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/wss-haryana-report-compiled.pdf
http://tehelka.com/silence-is-not-an-option/
https://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20121019/haryana.htm
https://dalitwomenfight.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/manisha.pdf
https://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Dalit_Women/NCDHRSubmission2012_VAW_Dalitwomen_India.pdf
