Asha Kowtal, Ambedkarite activist from All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, speaks at protests held to seek justice for the victim (Source: International Dalit Solidarity Network)
On August 24, 2013, a 20-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped and murdered while she was travelling to Jind from her village Baniyakheda, in order to write an exam. A daughter of a mason, she was studying in a Junior Basic Teacher Training course and had left home at 11 am to appear for a compartment exam. A woman from her village saw her get off the bus at the Jind bus stop, from where she was to take an auto-rickshaw to the examination centre.
Several hours after she had left, her father received a phone call saying that a plastic bag had been found with some papers, including her identity card and her father’s contact number. When the victim did not return home even at 6:30 PM, the family went to file a complaint at the Pillukhera police station. There, they found that the phone call had come from a person in Amarheri Gaon. The family went there to file a complaint but the police sent them back to Pillukhera police station, and the police refused to help them in finding the victim. The victim’s family went to search for her again at Amarheri Gaon but could not find her. The next day, the family was told that her body was found in the bushes near an irrigation canal in Amarheri. One relative had rushed to the spot, and seen that her body was lying face down, with her head at a lower level than her legs, which were sprawled closer to the road, her dupatta was missing, and her clothes were dishevelled.
The women of the family had rushed to the morgue where her body was kept and found that the body was kept on a stretcher without supervision or refrigeration. The women carefully examined the body and saw that her salwar and lower body was soaked with blood, there were cigarette burns on her upper torso, her neck was tilted as if it was broken, her feet were injured, and her hands and toes seemed to be broken as well. When their queries about the post-mortem did not receive any response, they decided to take the body outside and sit in protest of the delay and indifference shown by the police. There, the police brutally beat up protestors, and even kicked the dead body of the girl, and slapped her father, saying “Go away, you won’t get anything here”.
The post-mortem was finally conducted two days after her body was found, and the police claimed that there was no evidence of rape and that it was a suicide. A second post-mortem was conducted after the police violence on protestors attracted media attention. This post-mortem showed that the first one was conducted by someone without the necessary experience and in an extremely callous manner, resulting in the loss of crucial evidence. In the first post-mortem, the organs were not cleanly or completely removed, and a segment of the large intestine was left hanging outside the body. There were major contradictions between the first and second post-mortems, where the first said that the hymen was ruptured and the second one said that it was not. The police claimed again that it was a suicide, inspite of evidence of significant bruising and injuries that suggest rape. A third post-mortem was conducted at AIIMS hospital, however by this stage the victim’s body was in an advanced stage of decomposition and the report could not prove rape. The police claimed that it was a suicide and said that traces of poison were found in the body, but this was denied by one of the main doctors who conducted the post-mortem, suggesting falsifying of information by the police. None of the post-mortem reports were shown to the family in spite of RTI applications and court pleas.
In a pattern of blaming Dalit women for the violence they face, the police showed a consistent effort of asserting that it was a suicide before any conclusive evidence was found and hence not conducting a satisfactory investigation. The police also showed contempt towards the victim’s family made visible through the police brutality against the protestors, many of whom were also faced with blame in media reports which described them as a “mob” that went on a rampage and destroyed public property. Relatives of the vitim were arrested in connection with the peaceful protest, and one Dalit boy was arrested for ‘abetment of suicide’. All of the arrested youth reported police brutality in custody. The case was finally closed with the police claiming that it was a ‘suicide’ due to a ‘failed love affair’.
References:
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
https://web.archive.org/web/20200926061733/https://indiaresists.com/fact-finding-report-dalit-girl-rape-jind-haryana/
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/villagers-demand-justice-for-dalit-girls-death-in-haryana/article5075966.ece
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/missing-girl-s-body-found-in-jind-family-alleges-rape-before-murder/1160080/
https://idsn.org/strong-dalit-protests-over-haryana-death/
