#ReportingToRemember the media and the Hindi film fraternity for blaming & shaming Niharika Singh

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Niharika Singh was born in 1982 in New Delhi. Niharika won the title of Miss Earth India at the Femina Miss India beauty pageant in 2005 and began acting in 2006. Niharika made her feature film debut in the 2012 film Miss Lovely. She is currently the director of Future East Film.

Her maternal family is from the Regar caste, and her paternal family is from the Jatav caste. In 2018, she wrote an account of her experiences of sexual harassment and violence and her #MeToo experience as a Dalit woman which was posted by journalist Sandhya Menon on Twitter. In her account, Niharika named actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mayank Singh Singvi. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a Sheikh, an upper caste Muslim. Mayank Singh Singvi’s caste has not been reported, though Singvis are often Bania Jains, a powerful trading caste.

In Niharika’s account, she outlined various encounters she had with actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Siddiqui coerced her and sexually harassed her, through inappropriate and unwanted advances. In 2009,  Siddiqui went to Niharika’s house when they were supposed to meet, and grabbed her suddenly without her consent when she opened the door. She wrote that after some coercion, she gave in and began a relationship with him. The relationship lasted a few months. Niharika ended the relationship after uncovering that Siddiqui had been lying to her and multiple other women. Niharika began to receive calls from those other women, sometimes yelling at her. Through one of them, she found out that Siddiqui was married to a woman in Haldwani, whose family had sued him for making demands for dowry. She ended the relationship with him.


In 2013, Siddiqui made advances towards Niharika again while they were working on a film together. Niharika rejected Siddiqui’s advances. In 2014, he inappropriately grabbed her after a promotional event. After Niharika refused again, Siddiqui  began to discredit her as an actress in his social circles which included powerful members of the film industry. In spite of her previous critically acclaimed performances, Niharika stopped getting film offers after that

In 2017, Siddiqui wrote a memoir titled ‘An Ordinary Life’ with Rituparna Chatterjee. In the memoir, Siddiqui fabricated stories about his  relationship and sexual encounters with Niharika, using her real identity without her consent. News publications began to print and publicise the excerpts which mentioned Niharika, using various images from her life. The reprinted excerpt painted a misleading picture about their interactions, using false and unverified details. The excerpts portrayed Niharika as a seductress,waiting for Siddiqui in her home with candles lit, while jealously sending emails to other women he had been with. Siddiqui published sexual and explicit details of his relationship with Niharika, without her consent. t The accounts weres not fact-checked by the author or the publication house both of which refused to apologise or take responsibility for the injustice

In 2018, when Niharika  wrote her statement published by journalist Sandhya Menon, various people victim-blamed Niharika  on twitter. People  on Twitter claimed that she was lying, blamed her for mentioning her caste in her account where she spoke about her specific experiences as a Dalit woman in Bollywood and highlighted the effect of caste in her experience with sexual harassment. People blamed her for continuing to associate with him, and talking about details of their relationship in public. Actress Kubbra Sait also publicly defended Siddiqui and dismissed Singh’s experience, saying that she was simply ‘airing a relationship gone sour’ and ruining a man’s reputation. There was also an organized troll campaign as multiple accounts posted identical tweets about Singh lying and Siddiqui being a good man.

In her account, Singh also named Mayank Singh Singvi for physically abusing her and using casteist slurs.

The ‘character’ of a Dalit actress already in the public eye was maligned in the public sphere in violation of all journalistic and publication norms without so much as protecting her identity. This reveals the prevalence of victim-blame against Dalit women who are seen as ‘sexually available’ by default. Dalit women, no matter how much public visibility they may enjoy as media professionals, are not afforded the privilege of respectability that protects upper-caste women. In the prevalent culture of harassment in the media industry, powerful upper-caste men punish their victims by discrediting them. Niharika Singh who had made space for herself in an industry dominated by upper-castes, was pushed out of her professional circles by her harasser, Siddiqui who discredited her in his circles. Professional and social discrediting is a form of victim blame that deprives victims of the network and social capital necessary for work. 

Siddiqui withdrew his memoir but did not face any legal consequences for his actions. He continues to be a prominent and respected actor in Indian media. Niharika Singh joined Future East Film as one of the directors of the company in 2019, where she introduced one of the first diversity film training programs for Dalit-Bahujan students interested in film. She wrote in her statement, "unless the Savarna feminists do not dismantle the same power structures from which they have benefitted, women in this country will continue to be gaslit, exploited and maligned; their dreams thwarted, voices silenced, bodies assaulted and histories erased."


References:

https://twitter.com/TheRestlessQuil/status/1060850214267871238/photo/2

https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/celebrities/niharika-singh-says-nawazuddin-siddiqui-is-lying-to-sell-his-memoir

https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/bollywood/nawazuddin-siddiqui-an-ordinary-life-memoir-niharika-singh

https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/why-are-nawazuddin-siddiquis-defenders-using-the-exact-same-tweet-to-troll-niharika-singh-1935195.html

https://feminisminindia.com/2019/08/09/conversation-niharika-singh-caste-representation-feminism-bollywood/

https://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/a-passionate-relationship-with-miss-lovely-co-star-niharika-singh-a-one-night-stand-with-a-jewish-waitress-5-revelations-of-nawazuddin-siddiquis-love-life-from-his-book-an-ordinary-life-a-memoi-1086638/

https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/kubbra-sait-trolled-for-defending-nawazuddin-siddiqui-after-metoo-allegations-says-why-should-i-not-1946623 

https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/kubbra-sait-jumps-to-nawazuddin-siddiquis-defense-after-niharika-singh-names-him-in-metoo-account-1945686

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/niharika-singh-shares-her-metoo-account-neo-liberal-savarna-feminism-isnt-going-to-liberate-anyone-5528681.html

 

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#ReportingToRemember the three students & faculty at BYL Nair Hospital for the institutional murder of Dr. Payal Tadvi

On May 22, 2019, Dr. Payal Tadvi, a 26 year old second-year student at the BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai, was driven to suicide. Dr Payal Tadvi faced casteist abuse, bullying, and harassment from three of her seniors, and also institutional negligence of the situation.. The persons who abused her were Ankita Khandelwal, Hema Ahuja, and Bhakti Mehere. Although their castes have not been explicitly reported, all of them belonged to upper-castes, Khandelwals and Ahujas both predominantly belonging to mercantile Baniya castes. 

Dr Payal belonged to the Muslim Tadvi Bhil community. The Tadvi Bhils are an Adivasi community who live in parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, and belong to the larger Bhil community which is listed as a Scheduled Tribe. Many Tadvi Bhils have converted to Islam, like Dr Payal’s family. Though the Tadvi Bhils are listed as Scheduled Tribes and are entitled to various government protections, Muslim Scheduled Tribe families often find it more difficult to avail of reservation, as their names are often omitted from the quota list. 

Dr Payal Tadvi, a medical student, had first reported the harassment to her husband in 2018, and it continued until she finally could not take it anymore. Her harassers harmed her education as a medical student at the hospital, abused her publicly, and obstructed her work in the hospital, including barring her from entering the delivery room in the gynaecology department. According to her family, they humiliated her for having availed of reservations, a constitutional right. They said things such as “You people are adivasis, your job is to clean, you go and do that“, “We will not let you study, we will not let you go to the operation table”, “You do not deserve to be a doctor, you people can’t become doctors, it is our work“. 

According to witnesses, they humiliated her publicly saying, “Ye kaam kon karega, ye tera kaam nahi hai toh kiska kaam hai? Tu chhoti jaat ho ke hamari barabari karegi kya (Who will do this work, if this is not your work then whose is it? Coming from a lower caste, you think you are our equal)?” and “Aye Adivasi… tu idhar kyu aayi hai? Tu delivery karneke layak nahi hai, tu hamari barabari karti hai (You tribal, why have you come here? You’re not competent to perform a delivery, and you are trying to compete with us).”

According to Snehal Shinde, a main witness and friend of Dr Payal who faced similar discrimination from Ankita Khandelwal, Hema Ahuja, and Bhakti Mehere, the three  would stand outside her room and taunt her, even in the last moments of her life, unaware that she was dying. 


Besides the three seniors who directly abused her, there were others also responsible for her distress, including the Head of the Department, Dr Yi Ching Ling, to whom her mother had complained about the harassment. Dr Ling not only refused to take any action but also disclosed the details of the complaint to the accused hence making Dr Payal even more vulnerable. The institution is also responsible for Dr Payal’s mental distress since it did not have any formal mechanisms in place to address complaints of caste-based harassment, and no SC/ST cell, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its Dalit and Adivasis students.


More than a year after her death, in July 2019, pictures of her suicide note which had been deleted, were recovered from Dr Payal’s phone, suggesting that the three abusers, who had entered her room shortly after she committed suicide, had tampered with the evidence as well. The note named all three of them and outlined the casteist harassment as the reason for her taking her life. 


However, the abusers blamed Dr Payal for her death, through the court proceedings. Shortly after Payal Tadvi’s death, the accused wrote to the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, blaming Payal for not being able to handle the work pressure at the hospital. 


While moving for bail, they blamed Dr Payal’s performance for not being up to the expected standards at the hospital and the huge amount of pressure caused by this, and even claimed that she had “shirked responsibilities” 


Later in June 2019, during court proceedings, their representatives questioned Dr Payal’s “capacity” to deal with academic pressure, blamed her unstable mental health and alleged that marital discord was the real cause for her death. They questioned why Dr Payal had opted to stay in the college hostel when her husband Salman Tadvi, also a doctor, was an assistant professor in the same BYL Nair Hospital, and lived nearby, and shifted the blame of the abuse on Dr Payal by implying that she was only reprimanded because she was not doing her job well. 


In October 2020, the Supreme Court allowed the three accused to re-enter the college and resume their studies, while the trial is still pending. In February 2020, the Bombay High Court had set a time constraint of 10 months on the special court to complete the trial, but no verdict has yet been reported. 

#ReportingToRemember Anil Mishra for the murder of Ranu Nagatra. #ReportingToRemember the media for the subsequent erasure of sexual harassment & sexual violence.

On 20th August, 2018, Ranu Nagatra, a 23 year old Dalit woman who studied at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Government Girls College in Seoni, MP, was allegedly murdered by a man named Anil Mishra, age 38 years. Anil Mishra’s surname reveals that he is a Brahmin, though this has not been explicitly stated in news reports. Ranu Nagatara was a resident of Phulwari village and in her final year of B.A. She had been working as a domestic worker at Anil Mishra’s  house to make ends meet for her family after her father’s death.


Mishra had repeatedly harassed her while she was working at his house, according to reports. Ranu Nagatra filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. Six months later, while Ranu Nagatra was on her way to college ,Mishra was waiting for her on his bike near the Kotwali police station. 

They had a conversation on that location, after which he reportedly got furious, dragged her by the hair, pushed her on the roadside, and murdered her in broad daylight. He bashed her head with a big stone lying nearby. It is reported that Mishra had made numerous attempts  to pressure  her into withdrawing her complaint, and  she had refused. Ranu Nagatra died on her  way to the hospital. We pledge to never forget.


The act of seeking justice for workplace harassment led to further harassment, intimidation and even murder of the young woman reporting it.  Mishra’s pressure tactics and threat to withdraw the sexual harassment report did not deter  Ranu Nagatra  Ranu Nagatra did not withdraw the report and we stand in solidarity with Ranu Nagatra for reporting harassment, not giving into fear and speaking their truth. 


This points to not only the tactic of victim blame employed by the harasser, but also the negligence of the police authorities in protecting a victim from the aftermath of raising her voice. Mishra had previously been arrested on the sexual harassment complaint, but was released on bail, and his trial was pending in court. District Superintendent of Police Vivek Raj, said that Mishra seemed to be a ‘jilted lover’. Media reports too furthered a narrative of justifying this violence and murder by erasing his actions.  He was not referred to as the murderer and sexual harasser, but instead the ‘jilted lover’ seeking ‘revenge’.

Revenge murder means that the victim did something which resutled in an action that was justified. ‘Revenge’ implies that it was in reaction to another act. This narrative implies victim blame. That ‘she asked for it’, that this happened despite his repeated attempts.. The caste of the perpetrator was not reported, and invisibilized in the larger public understanding of this case. 


Caste based sexual violence is systemic. 


Invisibilising the caste of the perpetrator invisibilises the nature of the harassment itself. The harassment was committed by a male Brahmin employer at a job that was crucial for Ranu’s family’s survival. He commanded power not just within the workplace but over her family and community as well, being an upper-caste person from the same village. He harassed a young, Dalit woman while she was at work, knowing that there was a power disparity between them. These are not “romantic advances” but rather an abuse of power and an attempt at exploitation. To invisibilise this crucial dynamic is to shift the take away the accountability of the perpetrator.


Ranu Nagatra is being blamed for saying ‘no’, and phrases such as ‘jilted lover’ imply that it is justified for the man to inflict violence in retaliation. Anil Mishra’s status as a Brahmin man is what enabled him to inflict this violence in order to punish a Dalit woman for daring to say no and for filing a complaint. 


Invisibilizing caste and power when they are the very reasons why she was harassed and murdered, is victim blame.

#ReportingToRemember the Phugana Police for blaming & harassing a Dalit woman’s family when she tried to report molestation, which led her to die by suicide.

On April 13, 2018, Sudesh, a 39 year old Dalit woman committed suicide. Earlier that day, she was on the way to her village near Raipur, when two men Pradeep and Subhash (caste not reported) allegedly harassed her and pulled her into a sugarcane field to molest her. Her 8 year old son was with her. She was reportedly beaten up by the molesters when she tried to raise an alarm. The molesters ran away when people started gathering.

According to reports, her husband went to the Phugana police station in Muzaffarnagar district to file a complaint, but Police Sub-Inspector Subhash Chand detained Sudesh’s husband instead. He also demanded that Sudesh pay a sum of 5,000 Rupees to get him released. Sudesh scrambled to arrange for the sum and got it from the kiln owner where she worked, reaching the police station at night. The police still did not let her husband and her eight year old son go.

The police abused their power to harass and humiliate Sudesh’s family in order to punish her for daring to take action when she was sexually harassed. The police forced her to undergo the further distress of arranging for the money to pay for her husband’s release when neither of them had committed any crimes, but were instead reporting an injustice. Criminalising, bullying, and humiliating a victim of violence, especially a Dalit woman, and her family when they seek legal recourse deepens the injustice. The police officer worked to ‘punish’ Sudesh for not being silent.

Sudesh felt helpless,and hung herself reportedly on April 13, 2018 . She wrote in her suicide note that since the police were siding with the accused, she did not have any hope of getting justice, and therefore, she was ending her life.

Victim blame forced Sudesh to suicide. The burden of intimidation, humiliation, and harassment instead of protection on top of the burden of facing sexual violence led to this. #INeverAskForIt

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#ReportingToRemember Ariyalur Police & A Local Political Party.

Timeline:

8 PM, December 29, 2016 - Nandhini, a 17 year old Dalit girl, went missing in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu. Her mother Rajkilli, began a search for her. 


8:30 PM, December 29, 2016 - Nandhini’s family received a call from Manikandan pretending to be Thamilasaran, who said that Nandhini was in his custody. The family went to the Irumbulikurichi police station to file a complaint. They were asked to come back the next day. 


December 30, 2016 - Nandhini’s family returned to the police station to file a kidnapping complaint. The police filed a missing persons complaint. 

January 2, 2017 - Nandhini’s friend Devi told the family about her relationship with Manikandan.


January 3, 2017 - Nandhini’s family went to the police station to give them the information about Manikandan and Nandhini’s relationship. The police said they are going to a temple festival for security duty and asked the family not to come back to the station for the next 3 days. 


January 5, 2017 - Police file an FIR. Manikandan is called for an enquiry but is allowed to go after he denies complicity and two members of his village sign as witnesses on his behalf. He was asked to appear the next day but went absconding.


January 6, 2017 - Police record the statement of Nandhini’s friend Devi who knew about Manikandan and her relationship. 


January 8, 2017 - Nandhini’s family lodged another complaint with the Deputy Superintendent of Police to secure Nandhini from the illegal custody of Manikandan. 


January 9, 2017 - Police begin investigating Manikandan’s friends after one of his friends Arun reportedly consumed poison after an altercation with his parents. 


January 12, 2017 - Manikandan attempts suicide by consuming poison. The hospital where he is admitted reports the attempted suicide to the Kuvagam police station, which is a few kilometres away from Nandhini’s village. He says in his statement that he attempted suicide because he was being traced in relation to Nandhini’s murder. The Irumbulikurichi police does not take over the case. 


January 14, 2017 - Manikandan makes a confession at the Village Administrative Officer’s office. He states that he raped and murdered Nandhini after she became pregnant as he did not want to marry her due to her caste. Manikandan is arrested, and Nandhini’s body is found in a well in a decomposed state and is taken for post-mortem. 


January 15, 2017 - Manikandan’s accomplices, three of his cousins, Thirumurugan, Mannivanan and Vetriselvan are arrested. 


January 16, 2017 - Deputy Superintendent of Police comes to Nandhini’s house to insult her mother and reveal the pregnancy to her. 


Date not reported - The post-mortem report confirmed rape and murder but placed her time of death to be two weeks before the body was discovered, i.e., 29th December, thus implying that she was not in illegal custody. Lawyers representing Nandhini’s family and her family members said that this was an attempt to cover up the police’s inaction. They allege that Nandhini was seen by various villagers on the 30th of December, 2016 as well as the 3rd of January, 2017. 


April 10, 2017 - Madras High Court directed CB-CID probe into the case.


April 1, 2019 - Madras High Court declined to transfer the case to the CB-CID, saying that on the basis of the counter-affidavit filed by the police, the police had committed no wrongs in the investigation. The HC ordered the lower court in Ariyalur to conclude the inquiry within 6 months. No updates were reported on this case since then. 

On December 29, 2016, Nandhini, a 17 year old Dalit girl, went missing in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu at about 8 pm in the evening. Nandhini belonged to the Paraiyar caste, a Scheduled caste in Tamil Nadu.

As soon as she went missing, her mother, Rajkilli, started searching for her in the village and enquired with her friend Devi, but could not find her. At around 8:30 pm, one of Nandhini’s relatives received a call from someone who falsely identified himself as someone called Thamilasaran and said that Nandhini was in his custody. Later, Manikandan, the man who finally confessed to abducting, raping, and murdering her, admitted that he had actually made this call in order to mislead the family.

While the family did not know that it was Manikandan, they went to the Irumbulikurichi police station immediately, with the phone number. The family was asked to write down the complaint but the police refused to file it, saying they would file it the next day. “Do you have no other job? Why are you coming so late?”, the police rebuked the family.

Nandhini had left school after class 8 in order to support her family, which included her mother, elder brother, and elder sister. She became a daily wage labourer and did any odd jobs that came along her way. A local contractor had employed her as a labourer to build a road, right in front of their residence.

It was here that Nandhini met Manikandan Ramasamy, a 26 year old man who was supervising the construction, and who belonged to the dominant Vanniyar caste. Manikandan was also the taluk secretary of the Hindu fringe group known as the Hindu Munnani, and was reportedly very close to the district secretary, Rajashekhar. Manikandan and Nandhini began a relationship, in spite of Rajkilli, Nandhini’s mother, repeatedly warning Manikandan that they will face problems since they are from different castes. Manikandan told her they were just friends.

The Vanniyars are a caste historically associated with agricultural labour and classified by the government as a backward class. However, Vanniyars have increasing influence in Tamil Nadu due to their ownership of land and political power. Vanniyar political organizations such as the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), reported to have a strong base amongst the Vanniyars of Nandhini’s village as well, has been known for anti-Dalit mobilisation and violence. In Nandhini’s village, strongly segregated by caste, there were 3000 Vanniyar families, and only 300 Dalit families.

After being rebuked and told to leave on December 29, the night that Nandhini first went missing, Nandhini’s family returned to the police station to file a complaint on December 30.

They insisted that their daughter was kidnapped, but the police filed a missing persons complaint. Nandhini was a minor, and according to the law, her being taken away without the legal consent of her guardians amounts to kidnapping. The police  went against the wishes of the family and also  violated the law in filing a missing persons complaint.

According to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences or POCSO Act of 2012, the police should have made immediate arrangements for the care and protection of the child within 24 hours, and the police was duty-bound to inform the parents of the status of the investigation. Instead, the police took no action, and treated the family with disdain. As reported by the News Minute, the police said to Rajkilli, "We'll find her but when a saree falls on thorns it has to be removed slowly”, implying that they would not take any swift action. They further insulted her and her motherhood saying, “Look at how you have brought her up. Child has gone rogue and you are sitting at home, you are coming here. Are you a woman?”. The police implied that Nandhini was of loose morals and had left home herself, rather than being kidnapped, and questioned Rajkilli’s motherhood due to not controlling her daughter.

On the night of January 2, Nandhini’s friend and neighbour Devi told the family about Nandhini’s relationship with Manikandan. From this information, Rajkilli gathered that Nandhini had been abducted by Manikandan. The family went to the police station again with this information, and Rajkilli wrote in her complaint that she had got to know from Devi that Manikandan had abducted her daughter. The police did not record this crucial information. Instead, the police told Rajkilli that they were going for  security duty to a temple festival and asked her to return after three days. The FIR was only filed on January 5, 2017. The police called Manikandan for an enquiry on January 5 and he was allowed to go after a few hours without arrest when he denied any complicity in the case and two members of his village signed as witnesses on his behalf. The family accused the District Organiser of the Hindu Munnani of using his political power to influence the police and ensure that Manikandan was allowed to go. Manikandan was asked to appear again the next day, but he absconded after this incident.

In a counter-affidavit filed in response to Nandhini’s family’s complaint about the police’s inaction, the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Ariyalur District said that an inquiry was done by the Inspector. He claimed that through their inquiry the police had found that Manikandan and Nandhini were having a ‘love affair’ and she had ‘eloped’ with him. This was in spite of the fact that Nandhini was a minor taken away from her family without their consent, and a love affair would be inconsequential as she was below the legal age of consent.

On January 8, Nandhini’s family lodged another complaint with the police to secure Nandhini from the illegal custody of Manikandan, but to no avail. On January 9, the police began to investigate Manikandan’s friends. Reportedly, one of Manikandan’s friends, Arun, had consumed poison, and the investigation was directed towards him. However, it was found that he had consumed poison after having an altercation with his parents. 


On January 12, Manikandan attempted suicide by consuming poison and was admitted to a private hospital. The hospital informed the Koovagam police. The Kuvagam police station was in close geographical distance to Nandhini and Manikandan’s village. The Kuvagam police station registered a case for the attempted suicide as it was under their custody, and got a statement from Manikandan. In this statement, Manikandan said that he had attempted suicide as he was being traced in relation to Nandhini’s murder. Still, the Irumulikurichi police, who was investigating Nandhini’s case, did not act. It was only on January 14 that Manikandan himself went and confessed to his crimes at the Village Administrative Officer’s office. This was however, an extra-judicial confession; a confession made but not made in the presence of judicial authorities, i.e a police officer.

Manikandan stated in his confession that Nandhini had told him she was pregnant. He was unwilling to marry her since she was a Parayar and so he decided to “use” and murder her. The objectifying language of “using” here refers to engaging in sexual relations without committing to marriage, and the use of this language shows Manikandan’s attitude towards Nandhini. According to his statement, he tried to push her to get an abortion, and abducted her when she refused. He was seen by witnesses as late as January 3 transporting Nandhini around on his bike, apparently trying to find a doctor to conduct the abortion. He reportedly could not find a doctor who was willing to take the risk, as she was a minor and not married. Manikandan confessed to abducting Nandhini with three accomplices, also from the Vanniyar caste. They gangraped her, murdered her, and then disposed of her in a well.

The police informed Nandhini’s family of this an hour and a half after the confession was given. The family rushed to find Nandhini’s body in the well. Her body was in a decomposed state.. Nandhini’s body was taken away by the police for the post-mortem immediately, without the consent of her  family.

The post-mortem confirmed that she was gang raped and murdered, and the men allegedly also inflicted violence on the foetus. When the pregnancy was discovered, the police berated and humiliated Nandhini’s mother, saying “What kind of mother are you? How could you not know that your daughter was pregnant?” However, the post-mortem did not record details of the pregnancy, and neither was a DNA test conducted. While the police claimed that the foetus was too young for the DNA test, Rajkilli estimated based on the fact that Nandhini had not had her period for three months, that the foetus was much older than the police were attempting to portray it as.

Advocate Karal Marx who is representing the family, Advocate Sasikumar, an activist who was part of a fact-finding team in the case, as well as Rajkilli, believe that the date and time of death is being manipulated by the police in order to hide their inaction. Activists also bring attention to the fact that the police failed to take action when Nandhini was missing and in Manikandan’s custody for around 5-6 days before she was murdered. Devi’s statement, as a crucial witness in the case, was only recorded on January 6 and two other accused in the case were not interrogated. Reportedly, all four accused were initially arrested under the Goonda Act. Later, the charges against them were wrongly scripted. Manikandan and his cousin were booked under Section 5(a)(i) of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which pertains to aggravated penetrative sexual assault by a police officer in a police station. The correct charge should have been under Section 5(g) of the POCSO Act, which refers to gang rape. The other two accomplices were booked only for disposing of the body.

The various discrepancies and delays made by the police in filing of FIRs, taking witness statements, interrogating all the accused, and recording evidence are meant to enable the accused rapist and murderer, Manikandan, when the case goes to trial.

Nandhini and Manikandan’s relationship, as well as Nandhini’s feelings towards Manikandan have been a prominent theme in media reports. Nandhini was just 17 years old at the time, Dalit, and a construction labourer, when her 26 year old employer, Vanniyar and construction site supervisor,  engaged in a ‘relationship’ with her.

Nandhini was not just legally below the age at which she could give informed consent, but the relationship was also marked by the major power differences between her and Manikandan. Besides the age gap, Manikandan also belonged to the dominant Vanniyar caste, and hence held power over her family and community, which was further strengthened by the clout he held in local politics. Manikandan was also Nandhini’s supervisor at a job that was essential for her family’s economic well-being.

Therefore, keeping all of the above factors in mind, even with her consent, Nandhini was vulnerable to abuse in this relationship. When a kidnapping born out of this is termed as ‘elopement’ or a ‘love affair’ by the police, it is not only in violation of the law, as pointed out by Priyanka Thirumurthy of the NewsMinute, but it also invisibilises caste, and blames a 17 year old girl. 17 year old Nandhini is blamed for consenting, by creating a narrative that she actively participated or had complete agency in the making of this tragedy; that violence committed on her was her fault. . Rather, we question the abuse of power through his caste, occupation and age by the murderer, Manikandan. The blame of manipulation and abuse of power should be on Manikandan. This victim blame ignores the fact that this relationship would have legally qualified as statutory rape. The narrative of ‘elopement’ , as that which ‘bad girls’ do dominates media reports signalling and implying victim blame. The police too question and blame Nandhini’s mother for Nandhini’s pregnacy and murder.

The police had refused to file a kidnapping complaint in the early stages of the case, even though they were legally required to because Nandhini was a minor. 


The police  went against Nandhini’s family’s wishes and filed a missing persons complaint instead.  While kidnapping implies the lack of agency on the part of a minor who has been abducted, a missing persons complaint implies the possibility of consent and the agency of the person whose whereabouts are unknown. 

Instead of cooperating with Nandhini’sparents and conducting the investigation with the urgency it required, the police  blamed Nandhini’s abduction on her mother, shaming her by saying that she  did not know how to raise a child. The police especially humiliated her when Nandhini’s pregnancy was revealed, blaming the violence on both of their characters- Nandhini for having had sexual relations, and her mother, for not ‘controlling her’ and knowing about her pregnancy.

The involvement of the Hindu Munnani led to further victim blame which served local politics. Although apparently in conflict, both Hindu and secular groups were dominated by the Vanniyar caste, to which the perpetrator belonged. The secular group,  Dravida Kazhagam (DK)  attempted to paint it as a communal crime, blaming the extremism of the Hindu group. However, the extremism or religious motivations of the group is irrelevant as both the victim and perpetrator were Hindus, and the crime was enabled by the caste power of Manikandan.. The dominance of the Vanniyar caste exists across party lines. Hence this shifting of accountability invisibilising caste dynamics and absolves the perpetrator of the blame of committing casteist sexual violence.

Hindu Munnani leaders also invisibilised caste dynamics of the crime, and the District Secretary Rajashekhar went on record to blame the victim, saying “We hear that the girl had aborted many children (sic) before and had relationships with many men.”

In April, 2019, the Madras High Court directed the lower court in Ariyalur to conclude the trial within six months. However, no verdict has been reported yet. 

#ReportingToRemember the Thakurs of Hathras, and persons in power for blaming & shaming Manisha Valmiki.

“If she was actually being raped why wouldn’t she have killed her rapists with the sickle she had with her for cutting grass?”

“Why would no one have heard her scream?”

“Why would a man who had two daughters, rape her?” 

“The Valmikis have gone too far”. 

September 14, 2020: Manisha Valmiki, a 19 year old Dalit woman, was working on her family’s fields in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. When she didn’t return home, her mother went to look for her, and found her lying on the ground, barely conscious, severely injured, and soaked in blood. 

She had allegedly been abducted, raped, and assaulted by four men from the Thakur-Rajput caste, Ramkumar, Ravi, Sandeep, and Luvkush. The Thakurs are a powerful landowning caste in Uttar Pradesh who command feudal power and political influence. The current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Bisht alias Yogi Adityanath, belongs to the same caste. 

The Thakurs lived right across the street from the Valmiki family for years, and resented the fact that the Valmiki family, belonging to a formerly-untouchable caste associated with manual scavenging, had been working on their own fields rather than working for the Thakurs. As of 2020, the village continues to practise untouchability against the Valmikis. Upper caste communities sprinkle water to purify their shops after the Valmikis leave, and for them to buy everything they touch. 

20 years ago, one of the Thakur men who raped and assaulted Manisha, had attacked Manisha’s grandfather as well. The Thakur man, along with his father, had tried to stab and murder Manisha’s grandfather.  This violence was committed because Manisha’s grandfather had asked the Thakurs to graze their buffaloes outside of the Valmiki family’ land. The Thakur’sattempt to murder Manisha’s grandfather  was not successful, but they cut off his fingers instead.

Four months before the rape, the Thakur men had been harassing Manisha and even threatened to harm her family. Their harassment was so incessant that Manisha refused togo out of her house alone. 

Manisha was abducted from her own land, near her own home, in broad daylight. The police never visited the crime scene, insisting on filing only an ‘attempt to murder’ case until she gained consciousness, eight days after the violence had taken place. India’s guidelines for medical examinations of sexual violence state that the chances of finding evidence are greatly reduced 72 hours after the incident. A maximum of 4 days, or 96 hours, should pass before medical samples are taken. Despite this, thehe UP police collected the medical sample 11 days after the violence took place. 

The test results never came back while she was alive, but Manisha gave her testimony before she died despite the severe injuries that she sustained on her tongue while being strangled. She named the four Thakur men who had raped her. A dying declaration is admissible in Indian courts as evidence of sexual violence. 

The police forcefully burnt her body at 2:30 AM on September 30, barring her own family from seeing the body or performing her last rites. Nearly 150 police officials formed a human chain blockading their home, restricting the family’s access to the body as the police set fire to the body. The family had been demanding the medical report with urgency while Manisha was still alive. However, the police shared the report with the family only after she had died from her severe injuries inflicted by the Thakur rapists, and her body had been forcibly burnt by the police who represent Thakur Chief Minister Ajay Bisht’s government.

The medical report stated that Manisha  had not been raped because there was no presence of semen. Her testimony was erased and ignored, and her family began to be intimidated and threatened by the State. Savarna groups like the Rashtriya Savarna Parishad and BJP MLAs organized events and protests in support of the accused, calling it a ‘fake case’. As the community mobilized in protest to demand justice for Manisha, Section 144 was imposed in Hathras. Siddique Kappan, a journalist on his way to cover the case, was arrested. FIRs were filed against Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekhar Azad and 600 other protestors. The police stopped journalists from entering the village in order to block information and to gradually erase the case from public memory. Manisha’s family’s communication was tapped and their privacy violated. A Special Investigation Team constituted by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister recommended a narcoanalysis test for the victim’s family to ascertain if they were telling the truth in their allegations. Narcoanalysis is the use of a drug, sodium pentothal on a person to ‘induce’ truth’ The narcoanalysis test is an outdated, unscientific ‘truth test’ often associated with coerced confessions. The police seized Manisha’s family’s phones and assaulted her father. Dr Azeem Malik, the Chief Medical Officer at the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital medical college under the Aligarh Muslim University publicly contradicted the police’s version. He challenged the validity of the forensic report taken 11 days after the violence took place. Soon after, he was terminated from his position by the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.

Source - https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/hathras-rape-dalit-woman-caste-atrocities-thakur-supremacy-violence-uttar-pradesh-police-state#read-more

Source - https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/hathras-rape-dalit-woman-caste-atrocities-thakur-supremacy-violence-uttar-pradesh-police-state#read-more

The state machinery of Uttar Pradesh used all its power to stifle the demand for justice coming from all quarters, protect the accused, and discredit the victim and her family. 

The kin of the accused have gone on record to dismiss the entirety of Manisha’s testimony. They say that the rape allegations are false and fabricated for political benefit. 

“If she was actually being raped why wouldn’t she have killed her rapists with the sickle she had with her for cutting grass?”

“Why would no one have heard her scream?”

“Why would a man who had two daughters, rape her?” 

When all else fails, they say- these Valmikis have gone too far. “Yeh log sar pe chadh gaye hain” 

Referring to the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act they say, 

“Everyone knows Dalits have always used the Harijan (sic) Act to target upper castes” 

“I have heard that the girl’s family killed her and framed the upper caste men. These people can go to any extent for money”

While refusing “permission” to her family from taking her body, the police rebukes them, saying- “We might have made mistakes, but you made mistakes too” 

The District Magistrate visits the Valmiki family and says- “Do you want to ruin your credibility? The media will leave in a few days, but we will remain in the village”

BJP leader Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava says, “She must have had an affair with one of the boys and got caught.”

BJP MLA Surendra Singh off-handedly insulting Manisha’s family, says, “Rapes can only be stopped with sanskaar. It's the duty of all mothers and fathers to imbibe good values in their daughters and bring them up in cultured environments."

Exactly 14 years ago on the day Manisha succumbed to her injuries, Surekha and Priyanka Bhotmange were stripped, paraded naked, raped, and murdered by a mob of people belonging to the dominant Kunbi caste in Khairlanji, Maharashtra. The men from their families were tortured and murdered. The Bhotmanges had also attempted to stand in the face of casteism in their village. 

Nearly 10 Dalit women are raped every day. Though there is no data about the identity of the rapists, a pattern emerges from most instances of violence that are reported. The people who rape, harass, assault, and murder Dalit women are powerful, upper-caste men, who want to punish them for asserting their agency, for educating themselves, for owning land, for walking alone, for going to work, for simply daring to claim personhood in a society where it is constantly denied to them. 

But the violence itself is never the end of the brutal indignities Dalit women and their families have to face. 

Sexual violence is followed by harassment and negligence from the police authorities, criminalisation of the victim’s family, humiliation and intimidation from police, politicians, rapists, and the constant dehumanization in public memory. The violence inflicted on Dalit women is invisibilised, or their trauma made into sensationalised news that is forgotten as soon as it is published. The caste-based nature of the violence is undermined and the perpetrators’s caste identity goes unreported and protected. Often killed in order to be silenced, their testimonies are ignored, discredited, and made light of. The few women who survive sexual violence are  driven to commit suicide from fear and shame. The perpetrators, supported by power structures located in caste solidarities of the police, media, and politicians, remain untouched and unaccountable.

We #PledgetoNeverForget Manisha Valmiki because she was raped and murdered by Thakur men and she was not believed. 

We #PledgetoNeverForget the Valmiki family whose pleas for justice have been faced by intimidation and harassment and who are still standing strong in the face of the casteism of the entire country. 

We are #ReportingToRemember the crimes of the Thakur-Rajput rapists, police, and state, and all those who are working to undermine and stifle Manisha’s testimony. 

We pledge to work towards holding accountable a society driven by power and caste solidarities that invisibilises the injustices faced by Dalit women. We pledge to never forget. 

Source - https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/hathras-rape-not-nirbhaya-caste-crime_in_5f795880c5b64cf6a25162ff

Source - https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/hathras-rape-not-nirbhaya-caste-crime_in_5f795880c5b64cf6a25162ff

References:

https://thewire.in/caste/hathras-case-bjp-leader-rajveer-pahalwan-rally-support-accused-thakurs

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/bjp-leader-hindutva-groups-take-out-rallies-in-support-of-thakurs-accused-in-hathras

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/uttar-pradesh-police-threatened-beat-us-confiscated-mobile-phones-hathras-rape-victim-cousin-1727679-2020-10-02

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/hathras-gang-rape-autopsy-report-shows-victim-was-strangled-suffered-cervical-spine-injury-2303696

https://www.india.com/viral/prepare-to-be-more-shocked-savarna-parishad-allegedly-comes-out-in-support-of-hathras-rapists-says-innocents-are-being-framed-4157468/

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/media-will-be-gone-we-will-remain-dm-tells-hathras-rape-victims-family-896149.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54370087

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/2/hathras-they-locked-us-inside-our-home-and-burnt-her-body 

https://www.hindustantimes.com/lucknow/hathras-gangrape-accused-were-harassing-her-for-months-says-mother-of-19-year-old/story-6MwdIIiEG2x7KHN0BUkQDN.html

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/hathras-ground-report-who-are-the-accused-caste-discrimination

https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/09/29/help-us-get-justice-please-dalit-girl-assaulted-in-ups-hathras-succumbs 

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/victim-must-have-called-the-boy-to-field-as-they-had-an-affair-bjp-leaders-shocking-remark-on-hathras-case/663406

https://theprint.in/india/paying-price-for-being-upper-castes-thakurs-brahmins-claim-hathras-accused-innocent/517959/ 

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bjp-mla-surendra-singh-says-rape-cases-can-be-stopped-only-with-sanskar-not-governance-2304834 

https://thewire.in/caste/hathras-case-structural-violence-dalit-women-intersecting-factors 

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/hathras-rape-murder-narco-test-dalit-narcoanalysis-6779071/ 

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/hathras-case-victims-family-likely-to-undergo-narco-test-up-cops-seize-phones-of-kin/661597 

https://www.firstpost.com/india/19-year-old-dalit-girl-in-icu-after-gangrape-assault-in-ups-hathras-one-accused-arrested-8853721.html 

https://www.firstpost.com/india/19-year-old-dalit-girl-from-ups-hathras-dies-nearly-two-weeks-after-gangrape-and-assault-8861601.html 

https://scroll.in/latest/974778/hathras-row-over-phone-tapping-as-india-today-reporters-conversation-with-womans-family-leaked 

https://thewire.in/government/uttar-pradesh-hathras-protests-curfew-media 

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sedition-case-filed-against-kerala-journalist-3-others-arrested-by-up-police-on-way-to-hathras-2306407 

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/hathras-gang-rape-case-opposition-hatching-conspiracies-says-yogi-adityanath/story-uj2tdhjCaHvtvc1g0JiHoM.html 

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/hathras-case-fir-for-bid-to-trigger-caste-based-conflict-sedition-charge-included/article32773533.ece#:~:text=The%20Hathras%20Police%20have%20lodged,sedition%2C%20officials%20said%20on%20Monday.&text=between%20different%20groups

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/fir-against-680-people-including-azad-for-violating-section-144-after-hathras-visit/articleshow/78500535.cms

https://theprint.in/india/hathras-administration-imposes-section-144-in-district-seals-borders-till-31-october/514412/

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/hathras-case-no-meaning-of-fsl-report-after-3-days-of-rape-says-cmo-aligarh-medical-college 

https://thewire.in/women/hathras-case-doctor-who-contradicted-up-police-version-on-rape-has-now-been-sacked-by-amu 





#ReportingToRemember an Etawah Police Officer for assaulting a six year old Dalit girl

On February 2, 2009, a police officer in Etawah, UP was caught on tape torturing and assaulting a 6 year old Dalit girl, Komal. The police officer, Senior Sub-Inspector Shyamlal Yadav, belonged to the Yadav caste, classified as OBC in the state. As he inflicted the violence upon her, six other police officers (names and castes unreported) stood by watching and did not intervene. He tortured her based on the allegation that she had stolen Rs 280 from another woman. She belonged to a family of daily wage labourers. 

In the footage, the police man can be seen pulling her hair, beating her, and slapping her repeatedly as she begs for mercy. The police man tried to justify it saying that she had admitted to stealing the money. 

The allegation, even if there was evidence, does not justify this treatment and abuse of police power over a six year old Dalit child, Komal. A representative of the criminal justice system assaulted a Dalit child for no reason other than to assert his power over her in a context where the criminal justice system is structurally biased against Dalits, and police brutality and wrongful incarceration is widely normalized. A 2018 survey showed that 35% of Dalits were afraid of being falsely persecuted and mistreated by the police over allegations of petty theft. 

The policeman’s justification of torture, and misrepresentation of facts on record (the allegation was later found out to be false), is an attempt at justifying the violence six year old Komal faced by claiming ‘she asked for it’.. The police here abused their power to assert that the safety and dignity of a Dalit child is conditional upon her legal innocence and morality of theft.

Following national outrage, senior sub-inspector Shyamlal Yadav was fired from his position while SHO Chandrabhan Singh was suspended.

#ReportingToRemember the Modasa Police for framing abduction as ‘elopement’

On January 5, 2020, the body of Kajal, a 19-year old Dalit woman was found hanging from a banyan tree in the Saira village in Modasa, Gujarat. She had been missing for four days before that.

Her sister reported that she had been abducted by four men from the Bharvad family- Bimal, Darshan, Jigar, and Satish. She alleged that after abducting her, the four men had gangraped and then hanged her. Her sister, who was with her on January 1, had witnessed her being taken in a car by the four men she named. The four men had asked her to keep quiet about it. This was later corroborated by CCTV footage from a building in the area. All of the four men belonged to the Rabari caste, which has historically been associated with pastoral occupations. The Rabari caste is classified as OBC (Other Backward Class) in the region and although the caste is socially and economically backward, this particular family owned land and commanded political influence. The victim was from the Chamar caste, a Scheduled Caste traditionally associated with occupations considered ‘impure’ by Hinduism such as tanning and leatherwork, and against whom untouchability is still practised by upper-caste Hindus.

When Kajal first went missing, her family went to the police station to file a report, but were faced by inaction from the authorities. N.K. Rabari, an inspector who belonged to the same caste as the rapists, reportedly refused to file a complaint. He said that he had knowledge of her whereabouts, and lied to the family saying she had eloped to marry a man from their own caste. He even said he would soon produce her to them with her marriage certificate, proving that she had not gone missing but had eloped to get married.

The family’s instinctive fear and distress was natural seeing as they were one of only four Dalit families in the village, surrounded and outnumbered by powerful castes. The police’s victim-blame was directed at both the victim and her family. They dismissed the family’s fears and experience, rendering the caste oppression they have faced in the village, invisible. Not only did the police lie to the family, they also intentionally picked the kind of lie that would put blame on the victim and the men of their own caste.

Later, the police misinterpreted and ignored crucial pieces of evidence which suggested assault and rape, as well as her sister’s testimony, instead claiming that the victim had committed suicide. For instance, the body was found to be hanging from a tree at a height of around 20 feet, while according to the post-mortem, she was 152 centimetres tall and petite, and would be unlikely to scale that height. Two post mortems were conducted. The first report mentioned injuries to her neck, as well as part of the rectum being prolapsed from the anal canal. This information was not taken into consideration in the police’s interpretation of the report. The second post mortem reported that she was sodomized repeatedly, and injuries to her neck, forearm, upper chest towards the left side, and left arm, which the report suggests could have been sustained during a struggle or while being dragged on a hard surface. All of this information was not taken into consideration, and instead due to the absence of foreign particles of saliva and semen, the police ruled out sexual assault and the Special Investigation Team constituted to investigate this case said that the victim was in a romantic relationship with Bimal Bharvad, and committed suicide after he refused to commit to a stable relationship with her. Bimal Bharvad was charged mainly for abetment to suicide, while the other three accused were found to have no role.

The investigative authorities in this case exploited the fact that the victim was no longer alive to give her own testimony, to blame her for the violence she faced, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Source - https://www.thequint.com/news/india/gujarat-modasa-dalit-girl-rape-murder-family-alleges-police-casteism-ground-report

Source - https://www.thequint.com/news/india/gujarat-modasa-dalit-girl-rape-murder-family-alleges-police-casteism-ground-report

#ReportingToRemember garment factory supervisors in Kappalur; whose harassment led G Santhiya to die by suicide

On November 9, 2019, G Santhiya, a 22 year old Dalit woman from Nagamalaipudukottai, ended her life by consuming pesticide shortly after she returned from work. G.Santhiya was a tailor at a garment factory in Kappalur. The production manager and supervisor of the factory ,Mani and Chitra (caste unreported) had been forcing her to work extra hours by using tactics of insult and telling her that she did not work well. G.Santhiya had complained to Mani and Chitra’s  supervisors about the humiliation. Mani and Chitra retaliated, and made attempts to ‘teach her a lesson’ by harassing her,calling her by her caste name in front of the other workers and more. Unable to tolerate the shame and humiliation experienced in her workplace, G Santhiya was driven to suicide.

G.Santhiya’s workplace denied her a safe and healthy work environment. Her worker rights include being paid for working extra hours. G. Santhiya’s right to work with dignity was taken away through casteist insults and slurs directed at her. Mani and Chitra abused their power and used humiliation as a weapon to exploit her. They created a hostile work environment through tactics of shaming and blame. Her supervisors warned her about the possible future harassment and abuse she would face from not just her superiors but also possibly from her upper-caste peers. The distress caused by this behaviour drove G. Santhiya to suicide.

Source -

Source - https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/hathras-dalit-atrocities-privilege-rekha-raj-interview_in_5f7dd671c5b63de65f08b307

#ReportingToRemember the Gondia Police for dismissing Sanjay Khobragade’s dying testimony, and harassing & imprisoning Khobragade’s wife.

On May 16, 2014, 50-year-old Dalit activist Sanjay Khobragade was sleeping in his courtyard in the Kawalewada village in Gondia, Maharashtra. While he was sleeping, he was doused with kerosene and set ablaze by six Powar men and women. What followed was a victim blaming campaign against Khobragade’s wife, Devakabai, in an attempt to absolve the perpetrators. 

Sanjay Khobragade battled for his life for five days after the incident, eventually succumbing to his injuries. During that time, he provided three separate statement to the village tehsildar as well as the police, accusing 6 people belonging to the dominant Powar caste of setting him ablaze. They were Rushipal Tembhare, Madhuri Tembhare who was the village sarpanch and Rushipal’s wife, Bhaulal Harinkhede, Punaji Thakre, Hemant Thakre, and Shriprakash Rahangdale, the deputy sarpanch. The village had 1,500 Powar families as opposed to only 40 Dalit families, and the Powars commanded political influence. 

The Powars killed Sanjay Khobragade for asserting his identity as a Dalit, as an Ambdekarite, and a Buddhist. The local governing body, known as the Panchayati Samiti, had in the past allowed three temples to be built for the Hindus of the village on Panchayat land. Hence, the Dalits of the village had been demanding that the Panchayati Samiti make land available to build a Buddha Vihar or Buddhist temple as well. Khobragade had been one of the prominent voices in this fight, and had been demanding that the Panchayat provide a part of the land owned by the Bahyababa Temple Trust to be allotted for building the Buddha Vihar. Notably, the President of the Temple Trust, Shriprakash Rahangdale, was also the deputy Sarpanch. The demands of the Dalits were dodged for years, but the trust members finally relented. The trust members asked Khobragade to meet them after May 16, delaying the meeting by citing the Lok Sabha election results as an excuse. 

It was on the night of May 16, that the six accused tried to murder Khobragade. He had heard their voices distinctly before he was set ablaze. According to his statement, they said, “In our village, Mahars don’t raise their voice. How can this bloody outsider come into our town and tell us what to do? Burn him and erase all his traces”. 

Since Khobragade named the people that inflicted violence on him  in the statements before he died, his accusation counts as a dying declaration. Dying declarations are admissible as evidence in court. However, the police rejected and dismissed Khobragade’s statement as only a ‘suspicion’. The police later claimed that Khobragade was inebriated and therefore,  his statement was unreliable. The six accused were arrested initially after his death, but were soon released on bail. The release of the accused was followed by the arrest of Khobragade’s wife Devakabai and their neighbour, Raju Gadpayle, a Dalit rickshaw-puller. 

The police ignored the fact that there had been an on-going conflict between Khobragade and the accused about the Buddha Vihar. Shortly after Ambedkar Jayanti in 2012, Khobragade’s  house had been burnt down after an argument regarding the Buddha Vihar. Khobragade had filed over six police complaints against the accused over the years. Instead, the police blamed Devakabai, claiming that she had an affair with Raju Gadpayle. The police claimed that Devakabai and Raju Gadpayley conspired to kill Khobragade after Khobragade  saw Devakabai and Raju Gadpayle  in a compromising position. Both Devakabai and Gadpayle were tortured in custody and coerced into giving a confession for a crime they had not committed. 

Devakabai and Gadpayle spent four months in jail before being released on bail on August 23, 2014. However, the Powar murderers were never convicted. Victim blame was used to malign the character of a Dalit woman in order to dilute and divert the caste-based nature of the violence and intimidate her into not seeking justice for her husband.

#ReportingToRemember faculty at Teacher Training Institute in Bikaner for attempting to erase the rape & murder of 17-year-old Delta Meghwal.

On March 29, 2016, 17-year-old Delta Meghwal, a minor Dalit girl, was found dead inside a water tank at the Jain Adarsh Teacher Training Institute for Girls in Nokha, Bikaner. The institute informed the police that a student had committed suicide, and the police arrived to take the body for a post-mortem. The manner in which the police conducted the investigation showed that they had preemptively taken the account given by the staff of the institute at its word. According to the institution, Delta Meghwal had committed suicide due to being caught having consensual sex with her Physical Education Teacher, Vijendra Singh, the previous night. However, Delta’s parents allege that she was raped and murdered. 


The incident occurred towards the end of the Holi vacations in the institution. Delta, who was the first person in her family to study beyond school, was about to finish her two year course at the institute, and her father had dropped her there on March 28, 2016. The other girls had not yet returned from vacation, and there were only 4 girls in the hostel. Delta’s exam results were expected the next day. 


According to the hostel warden, Priya Shukla, Delta was found to be missing late at night on March 28. When she found out, she began a search for Delta with the rest of the staff, and asked her husband PP Shukla to join as well. She also asked the physical education teacher, Vijendra Singh to help in the search. He did not join the search, and according to Shukla, opened his door after a long time when she knocked on it. When he tried to shut the door again, she got suspicious and went inside to find Delta. She said that both of them accepted their ‘wrongdoing’, and she made them sign an apology note accepting their mistake and promising not to do this again in the future. The next morning, she found out at about 7 am, that Delta was missing from the hostel, and a search was begun. After which, she was found in the water tank. 


The manner in which Priya Shukla handled the case, even based on her account, is highly questionable. Delta, a minor, and a student at the institution, was found in a teacher’s room. In this case, which would amount to sexual harassment and possibly statutory rape, the warden should have taken Delta’s account, informed her parents, and ensured Delta’s safety. However, Delta’s parents' allegations give a completely different account of the events.

On the night of 28th March, Delta called her parents and said that the warden at her hostel, Priya Shukla (whose caste was unreported, but surname suggests she is a Brahmin) had made her go to her physical education teacher’s room in order to clean it. This caste-based abuse committed by her hostel warden was then followed by her PE teacher, Vijendra Singh  (caste unreported) raping her, of which Delta had informed her parents.

Vijendra Singh had reportedly joined as the Physical Education teacher four months ago, on the recommendation of Priya Shukla and her husband, who knew him from before. Though he was married, he was residing alone on the campus at the time, as his wife had not joined him.


The college authorities did not report this incident to Delta Meghwal’s parents. The administration did not fire the teacher for raping a student, nor filed any legal complaint against him. Instead the administration, especially the warden, attempted to cover up the incident by blaming Delta. They coerced her into signing the apology note along with the  rapist Vijendra Singh which implied that the act had taken place with mutual consent. The principal Ishwar Chand Baid (caste unreported, though surname is often used by Jain Banias) did not take any action against the PE teacher and kept the incident undisclosed to Delta’s parents.

The next day, after Delta Meghwal’s body was found, the institution reported it to the police as a suicide, and the police evidently pre-emptively decided that she had indeed committed suicide, without taking into account the events of the previous night, or conducting a thorough investigation.

Police officials of the area removed the body from the water tank, without following the protocol for collecting evidence, such as recording a video of the condition of her body or even recording a panchnama. A panchnama is an official police record of what the witnesses see, which can be proved only when the said witnesses testify under oath to what they saw. This is an essential part of any investigation, meant to guard a case from unfair dealings on the part of the police. Further, her body was taken to the hospital for a post-mortem in a garbage truck, insulting her even after her death. The FIR was not filed for 24 hours after her body was found. Various details of the condition in which the body was found were ignored, such as injuries including a bleeding ear, noted by press reporter Pavan Kumar who had taken photographs of the body. Further, the tank was fully covered, though not locked.

The post-mortem revealed that she had not drowned to death, as her lungs were not congested. It implied foul play since Delta’s body had been placed in the tank after she was already dead. The police was in a hurry to pronounce it as a suicide even before the forensic report came out. When the forensic report came out in April, 2016, there was a discrepancy in the findings based on it. The police claimed that she had drowned, while local activist Suresh Jogesh who accessed the report, noted that the lack of congestion in her lungs showed that she had died before being placed in the water.

In spite of the facts of the case and the events preceding Delta’s death, the Vijendra Singh and Priya Shukla were only charged with abetment to suicide, for which they were given bail. According to the Delta Meghwal’s father, the public prosecutor assigned to their case also did not sufficiently represent them, and went against their allegations to say in court, that the case looks like a suicide. The three girls who were staying with her in the hostel, also turned hostile as witnesses, in favour of the institution. 

The warden, PE teacher, and principal abused their power to first inflict casteist abuse and sexual violence on Delta, and then used intimidation and shaming to coerce her into signing an apology that they further used to blame her after her death. The note was used to portray her as unreliable and morally impure, ignoring the fact that she was a minor and a student. Rapist Vijendra Singh was responsible for abusing his power as her teacher. In her statement to a fact-finding team of the National Human Rights Organization, the warden framed the rape as “equal “wrongdoing”” on the part of both Delta and Vijendra Singh. The police also attempted to go through her text messages and phone records to suggest that she had been in a ‘relationship’ with the PE teacher for 2-3 months.

#ReportingToRemember the Bassi Police, a Rajasthan Sessions Court, an MLA, and the then Chief Minister of Rajasthan for blaming & shaming Bhanwari Devi

On September 22, 1992, Bhanwari Devi, a Bahujan woman who used to work as a sathin in Bhateri, Rajasthan, was gangraped by five men from the Gujjar caste. Her husband was beaten up at the same time. Bhanwari Devi belongs to the Kumhar caste which is traditionally associated with pottery, Since 1985, Bhanwari Devi had been selected and trained to work as a sathin. Sathins are grassroots workers employed as part of the Women Development Project, Rajasthan.


The Prajapat Kumhar caste, which Bhanwari Devi belonged to, is classified as an OBC in the state. She has also been reported to be a Dalit woman in many sources including the Court judgement. This can be attributed to differences between administrative and social categorizations or errors in reportage. However, it is clear that she belonged to a far less powerful caste than her perpetrators, who were from the Gujjar caste. The Gujjar caste too is classified as OBC. However, the Kumhars are a minority compared to the Gujjars. The Gujjars in comparison were the majority dominant caste and held economic and political power. Badri, one of the perpetrators, was a Gujjar, and a prominent local politician. Gujjars were a powerful group in the Bassi block, and the local Member of Parliament, Rajesh Pilot, was not only a Gujjar but also a cabinet minister in the Central Government at the time. The fact that all of these multiple positions of power were held by Gujjars, worked strongly against Bhanwari Devi.

When she began work on a campaign to stop child marriage in 1992, she found herself alienated by the people of the village who got increasingly hostile towards her. The state government in 1992 had decided to observe the fortnight preceding the Akha Teej festival as an anti-child marriage fortnight, as the festival is believed to be an auspicious time in Hinduism, and results in marriages and especially child marriages amongst Hindu families. The District Collector had asked the sathins to prepare a list of villages in the district where child marriage was rampant. The Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) and Deputy Superintendent of the Police (DySP) were on alert and making rounds of these villages. Bhanwari Devi was seen by the villagers as the cause for this police intervention in her village.

On the day of Akha Teej, she tried to stop the marriage of a one-year-old girl in Ram Karan Gujjar’s family. Bhanwari Devi knew that she would face retaliation for this, and had told the officials that the Gujjars would come after her. But she was asked to stop the marriage regardless of this danger, and she was faced with a hostile response from the family. The MLA of the area also opposed her strongly. A policeman was sent to stop the wedding. Instead of stopping the wedding, he engaged in the festivities and left. The Gujjars bribed the police and conducted the wedding the next morning.he entire incident was seen as Bhanwari Devi insulting the ‘honour’ of the Gujjar caste and their village.

After this incident, Bhanwari Devi and her husband were socially boycotted by the village- their fields were destroyed and their fodder stolen. They were denied access to basic living resources including water and milk. Those who did not boycott her were threatened by the Gujjars and forced to withdraw support. This hostility finally culminated on September 22, 1992, when Bhanwari Devi and her husband were working on their fields. Her husband, Mohan Lal Prajapat was attacked by brothers Ram Sukh Gujjar, Ram Karan Gujjar, and Gyarsa Gujjar, their uncle Badri Gujjar, and a Brahmin man, Shravan Sharma. Hearing his screams, Bhanwari rushed to the spot. Shravan Sharma and Ram Karan Gujjar held Mohan down, Ram Sukh Gujjar held Bhanwari Devi down, and Gyarsa Gujjar and Badri Gujjar raped her.

As a woman from an oppressed caste speaking publicly about sexual violence and decidedly seeking legal recourse, Bhanwari Devi was faced by victim blame from all parts of society for years to come.

The process of reporting the violence was marked by humiliation and dismissal.
The police refused to file an FIR. They argued with her for hours and humiliated Bhanwari Devi. The deputy Superintendent of Police at the Bassi police stations made statements such as "Aji saab, ranjish ke maare jooth bhi likhwa dete hain" (Due to personal enmity people sometimes make false allegations“ and “Madam, do you know the meaning of rape?”. The male doctor at the Primary Health Centre in the area refused to conduct her medical examination and forced her to travel all the way to Jaipur. However, in his reference letter he asked for an examination not for rape but for “confirming the age of the victim”. At the SMS Hospital in Jaipur too, the medical jurist refused to conduct the medical examination without orders from the magistrate and the magistrate refused to give them any orders, asking them instead to meet him the next day in court. Bhanwari Devi and her husband waited at the police station the entire night.  Finally, the medical examination was conducted 52 hours after the incident, and even then, did not record all her injuries properly. When she came back to Bhateri, the police made her deposit the lehenga she was wearing as evidence. The police forced Bhanwari Devi to wear her husband’s blood stained turban as clothing while she walked back to her home. During this time, the local MLA also made a statement at the state legislature saying that Bhanwari Devi was lying.

The villagers, instead of holding the rapists accountable, blamed Bhanwari Devi for making a ‘private’ matter of the village ‘public’, hence insulting the village’s honour. The men of the village were hostile towards Bhanwari for registering the case and reportedly on one occasion, forced her to swear on her son in the presence of a crowd that she had been raped in order to prove her allegations. 



The then Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, made a public statement saying “Dhaule baal wali mahila se kaun balatkar karega?” (Who would rape a grey-haired woman?) and refused to believe her allegations.

The accused were arrested more than a year after the incident, after the case was shifted to the jurisdiction of the CBI. During the course of the investigation, Bhanwari Devi was made to recount her statement multiple times, forcing her to relive the trauma of the violence again and again. Justice NM Tibrewal, the High Court judge who was first hearing the case had refused a plea for bail for the accused, saying he believed Bhanwari Devi’s testimony. However, the judges on the case were inexplicably changed five times. During the trial, Bhanwari Devi  was humiliated and intimidated, being forced to recall the details of the violence in the presence of 17 men, including the perpetrators. She had to describe the act of rape explicitly in front of the accused. The matter was reported in the village and she had to suffer abusive taunts from the other villagers.

All five accused were acquitted by a Sessions Court in 1995, in a judgement that ignored her testimony and her husband’s witness, instead resorting to victim blame. The judgement blamed Bhanwari Devi for the violence inflicted on her by calling into question her purity and her morality.

The judgement blamed her husband, saying “it is not possible in Indian culture that a man who has taken a vow to protect his wife, in front of the Holy fire, just stands and watches his wife being raped, when only two men, almost twice his age,were holding him.”

It discredited her testimony, saying “ there are three brothers and an uncle among the accused, and so, it is preposterous to believe that an uncle and his nephew would commit rape together”.

It said, “Among the accused is a Brahmin while the rest are Gujjars. Since gangs in rural areas are almost never multi-caste, the charge that members of two different castes acted together is highly improbable”.

It blamed her saying, “Bhanwari Devi neither immediately informed anyone (for instance, her in-laws) about the rape nor did she immediately file an FIR for the same”.

It further discredited her and blamed her by saying, “ Since Bhanwari Devi is a Dalit woman and all the accused men belong to upper-castes, it is ludicrous to believe that the latter would ignore the caste hierarchy and put themselves at a risk of being polluted by coming in contact with the former, let alone rape her”.

The judgement also dismissed her entire testimony saying, “the Indian rural society could not have sunk so low that a villager would lose all his senses of age and caste and pounce upon a woman like a wolf”.

The lehenga produced as evidence which was not the same one she had deposited, was pronounced to be too short to belong to Bhanwari Devi, and the semen collected from it was pronounced to not match the accused. The court blamed her character by suggesting that Bhanwari Devi was an adultress.

The acquittal and subsequent protests led to an even more hostile retaliation against her. People refused to buy clay vessels from her family. Bhanwari Devi and her family were denied access to all services and resources; not even allowed to fetch water from the village. Their kids were bullied in school and they were excluded from all events and festivities. Her family asked her to make peace with her assaulters after the acquittal, but when she refused, they severed ties with her.

After the acquittal, people began to shame her and intimidate her in order to stop her from filing an appeal. In 1996, the BJP supported a rally organized by the five accused. The accused sat garlanded on a stage, as speakers accused Bhanwari Devi of lying, and insulted everyone on her side. The organizers called for Bhanwari Devi to be hanged and burnt alive. A BJP MLA Kanhya Lal Meena denounced her as a prostitute. Incited by this rally, a number of villagers attacked her once again and beat her. 

In 2000, a film based on her story, Bawandar directed by Jag Mundhra was released. The film depicted the details of the case as they were, with the names of Bhanwari Devi, her husband, and the perpetrators, slightly changed. Before the release of the film, Bhanwari Devi stated that the filmmakers had not discussed the film with her. She later said that the director had promised her land and money and asked her not to allow anyone else to make a film about her. She had complied and said that although she doesn’t want money, she wanted him to help her get justice. Bhanwari Devi herself reportedly could not watch the film past the rape scenes. The film which portrayed violence committed against her without her consent and profited off of her trauma was an act of violence, often committed on Dalit-Bahujan women, whose bodily autonomy and consent is undermined in the public eye. This can also be seen in the 1994 film Bandit Queen directed by Shekhar Kapur, which depicted the rape of Phoolan Devi without her consent. 

After the release of the film Bawandar, Bhanwari Devi and her family faced further humiliation and blame. Villagers would reportedly go to watch the film saying, “let’s go see Bhanwari getting raped”. Bhanwari Devi’s son, who was then a college student, was forced to leave the college. Bhanwari Dev’s son was taunted and bullied. He was called “kumhari raand ka beta” (potter whore’s son).

Later, both her sons and their wives severed ties with her as well, blaming her for the shame they had to face. Her in-laws and her brother cut ties with her after she refused to accept the monetary compensation offered by the rapists to shut down the legal case.

Bhanwari Devi awaits justice to this day. In 2018 too, Bhanwari Devi  continued to  face  victim blame for seeking justice against her perpetrators, and was refused water from the village hand pump. 

Source - https://www.npr.org/2018/10/24/659917663/they-deserve-justice-mother-of-india-s-metoo-speaks-out

Source - https://www.npr.org/2018/10/24/659917663/they-deserve-justice-mother-of-india-s-metoo-speaks-out

#ReportingToRemember the police, the Panchayat and the upper caste Jat community in the Jhabbar Village.

On July 6 2002, in the Jhabbar village of the Mansa district in Punjab, two men committed rape on Baljit Kaur, a 17-year-old minor Dalit girl. The rapists were assisted by Gurmail Kaur, a Dalit woman. Gurmail lured Baljit to her home by seeking Baljit’s help in collecting water. There, the two men were waiting, and gangraped her.


One of the rapists, Mandheer Singh, was a Jat, while sources vary on the caste of the other rapist. Most sources report him to be a Jat as well, though one source reports that his name is Tarsem,  and that he belongs to a Scheduled Caste. Jat men in the region have historically asserted power over Dalit women and girls through sexual violence. Many Jat men viewed enduring sexual violence at the hands of Jat men to be like a ‘coming of age’ ritual for Dalit girls. Jat men proudly spoke about raping and hurting Dalit girls. Popular village songs also normalised the sexual violence Dalit women faced. Many people in the region followed a tradition where women from a Dalit bride’s house were made to put up a gidda or a dance show for upper-caste men with lewd songs that the men chose. Most of the times, Dalit victims of sexual violence were pressured into silence. The victims and their families were forced to settle for meagre payments and threatened with violence if they refused. Hence, no Jat rapist was brought to justice. 

Jats, an agricultural caste, formed fifty-five percent of the population, while Dalits formed forty-five percent. While the Jats were a dominant, powerful caste that owned land, most of the Dalits were employed as agricultural labourers in Jat fields and hence economically dependent on them. Baljit Kaur and her father Bant Singh were Mazhabi Sikhs, a Scheduled Caste. Bant Singh, like his father and older brothers before him,had refused to work as an agricultural labourer to remain economically independent from the Jats.

After the  rape, Baljit Kaur chose not to keep quiet or conceal her identity. Instead she challenged deep patriarchal values of shame and blame by speaking publicly about the rape. Baljit Kaur and her father, revolutionary singer and activist Bant Singh, decided to seek justice against the rapists.

It took a month for the FIR to be registered. Bant Singh and Baljit Kaur continued to face immense pressure from the rapists and other members of the village, especially the Panchayat. They were offered upto 10 lakh rupees, 3 acres of land, a scooter, and jewellery, in exchange for their silence. They refused to settle the matter outside of court.

All the three accused, including the two rapists and the woman who conspired with them were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004. This was the first time that a conviction had been secured in a complaint by a Dalit against upper-caste sexual violence. However, the conviction was followed by sustained harassment and violence from the Jats of the village as punishment for the conviction. Bant Singh’s older brother Hansa Singh, was forced to flee the village because of threats issued by the Jats. In 2005, Bant Singh was assaulted on two occasions by individuals associated with the rapists. Both the assaults were reported to the local police and charges were filed.

On January 5, 2006, Bant Singh was brutally beaten up by a group of armed Jat men. Severely injured, he lay on the road for 3-4 hours before anyone could come to his help. When he was taken to the civil hospital in Mansa, the doctor refused to touch him unless he was paid 1,000 rupees in advance. By the time Bant Singh was finally treated, his wounds had become infected. Due to gangrene, both his arms and a leg had to be amputated.

Soon after she was raped, Baljit Kaur was moved to a different village and married to a daily-wager widower with a child. The  family was told about the violence Baljit had faced and accepted her.

The violence had  brought an abrupt end to her school education as well as an existing engagement with a boy her own age. Soon after the rape, Baljit Kaur  was blackmailed by men who threatened to ‘expose’ her. She found out who the blackmailers were, and beat them up in the village square. Bant Singh continues to work for the liberation of Dalits in Punjab. 

Source - https://scroll.in/article/805090/the-dalit-who-lost-his-limbs-for-protesting-against-his-daughters-gang-rape

Source - https://scroll.in/article/805090/the-dalit-who-lost-his-limbs-for-protesting-against-his-daughters-gang-rape

#ReportingToRemember the media for erasure of the caste & class violence that led to Devika’s death by suicide.

14 year old Devika, a Dalit girl was driven to suicide on June 1, 2020.  Devika’s suicide was a result of the structural oppression and discrimination she faced as a Dalit student, especially exacerbated by the lockdown.

Devika belonged to a family of daily wage labourers. Their income was hit strongly by the sudden and complete lockdown imposed by the Indian government during the COVID pandemic in March 2020. Schools remained closed for the first few months of the lockdown after which the Kerala government announced that online classes would take place. The classes could be accessed via smartphone, and those who didn’t have one could access the classes using their TV. Those who didn’t have a TV would be provided with tablets. Although the government had given these assurances, no arrangements had reached students like Devika yet. Their family could not afford a smartphone and their TV was not  working. Devika had also received the Ayyankali scholarship, a scholarship offered to low-income students with high grades, and was anxious about losing it in case her performance dropped.

The media reported Devika’s death in a matter which undermined Devika’s struggle.. All headlines framed her suicide as being caused merely due to not possessing a smartphone or not being able to attend online classes instead of bringing attention to the structural inequality, access to education, social exclusion and the systemic injustice. These factors are crucial in understanding Devika and many other Dalit children’s realities, especially in a pandemic. The media reports stressed on how there were alternatives to smartphones for attending online classes and that she could have accessed that. All of this lacked an understanding of what Devika was going through and minimised the tragedy by projecting Devika as a teenager with unnecessary anxieties.

Dominant media narratives projected Devikas as highly anxious, with statements such as “Upset over not having smartphone, Class 10 Girl Commits Suicide”, and reiterations of other options, such as availability of recorded classes online to be accessed later or broadcasted through television, and availability of televisions in public places. Media reports and statements by government representatives suggested that she had options - this is victim blame. Devika’s death cannot be seen without the context of a pandemic, financial hardships, the uncertainty of livelihood and also the burden of performing well academically to ensure/ retain her scholarship. The media reports also do not attempt to address the social exclusion she could possibly have faced due to her caste in school. Finally, there was the immediate trigger of not being able to attend classes which showed the negligence of institutional mechanisms towards marginalized students. These structural issues were ignored for the sensational headline of a “teenaged girl committing suicide” over a problem that could have been managed, hence blaming her for her own marginalization. 

Source - https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/digital-divide-worsens-social-exclusion-anti-caste-activists-devika-s-death-125879

Source - https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/digital-divide-worsens-social-exclusion-anti-caste-activists-devika-s-death-125879



#ReportingToRemember the Andhra state government for erasing the rapes of 11 women of the Kondh Tribe committed by police personnel.

On August 20th, 2007, 11 women of the Kondh tribe in a tribal village called Vakapalli, in the Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, were raped by 13 Greyhound personnel.

The Greyhounds are a special unit of the police force that operates in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and specialises in anti-insurgency operations against Maoists and Naxalites. The names and castes of the rapists have not been reported. The victims belonged to the Kondh tribe, and are classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Andhra Pradesh, a sub-classification under Scheduled Tribes.

Vakapalli falls in one of several areas along the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border where Naxalites have a presence. The Greyhounds personnel stormed the village at around 6 AM in the morning, for what they called a “combing operation”, or looking for Naxalites. The men had left to work in the farms much earlier in the morning, at around 4-4:30 AM. Only women and children were present in the village at the time. The Greyhounds surrounded the village, began to ransack the homes in the village, and cut the power supply of the village.  They raped women. Some women were raped at gunpoint. Some women were raped in the fields. 11 Kondh women of the hamlet were raped, out of whom 7 women were gangraped.

Operations to “flush” out Maoists or Naxalites by state personnel or state-sponsored militant groups has long been an excuse to inflict violence against tribal communities, especially women. When the 11 victims sought justice against the rapists, they were faced with dismissal and victim-blame from the State as well as their community.

On the day of the violence, the 11 women went to file an FIR. The local police refused to file one, saying that the women had fabricated the crime. The Superintendent of Police Akum Sabharwal, said that the allegations were baseless and the women wanted to tarnish the image of the police. The Director General of Police, MA Basit said that the allegations were baseless and part of a ploy by Maoists to discourage combing operations. The FIR was only registered a week later after protests by villagers.

On September 6, 2007, an inquiry was initiated by the State Government under the charge of the Secretary of Tribal Welfare. The State Government inquiry report said that no medical evidence of rape was found. However, this was based on the FIR that had been filed week after the rape, where the delay had made it difficult for any medical evidence to be recorded. In the inquiry, the police accepted that 21 Greyhounds personnel were present in the hamlet on that day but denied the allegations of rape, instead claiming that the 30 women in the hamlet had attacked them when they attempted to take one person into custody during a routine combing operation. 


Combing operation is the police terminology to refer to operations where armed personnel often storm tribal areas, arresting and attacking tribal people the police claim are Naxalites. Terming someone as a Naxalite justifies various forms of violence in the eyes of the state and state personnel are able to inflict this violence with impunity. This is a punishment for resistance that is faced disproportionately by tribal communities.

The inquiry reported listed above also recommended that an investigation be conducted without any further loss of time, since no investigation had begun even 18 days after the police complaint was filed.

A tribal-rights organisation, Andhra Pradesh Girijan Samakhya, filed a petition in the High Court in September 2007, following which the investigation was handed over to the superintendent of police of the Crime Investigation Department. On November 14, 2007, based on the Crime Investigation Department’s report, the High Court dismissed the petition.

In 2008, the victims challenged the CID report before a local magistrate which began proceedings in the case. However, the High Court stopped the proceedings based on an appeal by the accused. Four years later, it ruled that only 13 out of the 21 accused Greyhound personnel could be tried in the case. The 13 Greyhound personnel filed another petition in the Supreme Court to quash the criminal case against them.

In 2017, ten years after the rape of the 11 women, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the accused and ruled that the case should be concluded in the next six months. However, the police, protecting the accused, have continued to cause delays. As of February 2020, the case was still not concluded, with the police refusing to cooperate and claiming that key documents required for the trial are  ‘untraceable’.

The accused State Greyhound personnel abused their power by inflicting  trauma and injustice on the victims. The state machinery including the police delayed the case, making the victims and their communities even more powerless. In the many years following the violence, the victims have faced victim blame in various forms, such as listed below - - -

According to a local custom, women who face harm are separated from their families and not allowed into their homes until the perpetrators are punished . One of the women was separated from her new-born baby as well. They were provided shelter during this separation by the village leader. However, during this time, one of the women died from a snake bite. Another woman died after severe mental trauma. When the community realised that seeking justice against the police would be a long battle, a cleaning ritual was performed on the women. The women were asked to bathe themselves in the cold water of a nearby river before they could enter their homes. Many of the women restricted themselves to working and staying at home for years due to the fear and shame of being identified in public. The victims were also ordered by the panchayat to pay 10,000 rupees and a bull each as penalty for being raped. The penalties were waived off after intervention by an NGO. Husbands of the now ostracised victims began to resent them. One husband of a victim said that even though he knew it was not her fault, sometimes he got so angry at her that he felt like ‘drinking her blood’. Another husband wished that his wife had died after being gang-raped. Due to ostracization from the community, two of the women were abandoned by their husbands.

Meanwhile, the police intimidated and harassed various members of the community in retaliation for the women’s attempts at accessing justice. The police blocked their access to facilities such as healthcare, banks, higher education, revenue offices, and so on, all of which were located in the mandal headquarters. People travelling to and from there were illegally detained and abused in custody. One man, named Korra Chinnabai, disappeared shortly after the police told his friend that there was a Naxal case against him. The police denied having him in custody. The police filed numerous Naxal cases against the villagers to demoralise them and increase the pressure on the victims.

Throughout their battle for justice, the women continued to face the accusation that they were lying because they were Maoists or because they were protecting Maoists.Even if they were maoists,, it doesn’t negate the fact the women were raped, but calling Adivasi women Maoists or Maoist sympathisers is the State’s way of justifying and blaming them for any violence inflicted upon them. 

Source - https://scroll.in/article/848097/adivasi-women-in-andhra-who-accused-elite-anti-naxal-force-of-rape-10-years-ago-struggle-for-justice

Source - https://scroll.in/article/848097/adivasi-women-in-andhra-who-accused-elite-anti-naxal-force-of-rape-10-years-ago-struggle-for-justice

#ReportingToRemember the Bhiwani & Rohtak police, the Bhiwani upper caste community, and the Rohtak court for denying & delaying justice to a young Dalit woman who was raped.

On July 13, 2016, a 21-year-old Dalit woman was found unconscious in the Sukhpura Chowk area of Rohtak, Haryana. A masters student at Rohtak’s Maharshi Dayanand University, she was abducted from near her college, drugged, gangraped, and left to die in the bushes. For her, this brought back the horror of similar violence she had faced just three years ago, in 2013.


According to the victim’s mother, she was first gangraped in Bhiwani by five men on October 18 in 2013. The five men were Mausam Kumar, Amit, and Raju alias Jagmohan, who were Jats, along with Akash and Sandeep Kumar, who were Dalits. The rapists videographed the rape and threatened to release the video online. According to some reports, they had drugged her before raping her. They forced her to meet them again after four days, on October 22, 2013. They threatened to release the videos if she did not meet them. When she went to meet them, they gangraped her again. After the five men raped her in Bhiwani in 2013, two of them, Amit and Jagmohan were arrested and released on bail while the other three were never arrested. According to the victim’s brother, the police did not investigate the case properly and they were made to go from station to station in pursuing the case.

While the young woman’s family filed a case for their re-arrest and continued to seek justice, they were faced with social ostracization and shaming, as well as threats to their safety from the accused. The accused were allegedly pressuring them to agree to an out-of-court settlement of 50 lakh Rupees. Social ostracization and victim blame forced the family to move to Rohtak from Bhiwani.

The kin of the accused claimed that she was lying and blamed her of playing ‘the Dalit card’. Phrases such as this, which frame marginalization as an advantage to be used by a victim for their benefit, are a form of victim blame, aimed at discrediting a victim due to their caste. 

According to her mother, she lapsed into severe depression in the years following the violence and dropped out of college. Eventually she re-enrolled in college in 2015. On July 13, 2016, she had stepped out of her college at 1:30 pm and did not return home. She was found unconscious in some bushes at 6:30 pm. She reported being abducted into a car, choked and slapped, then being drugged. She said that she regained consciousness to find that her pants had been taken off, after which she lost consciousness again. She woke up when they choked her and threw her out of a car.

She reported that the five men who raped her in 2016 were the same as the men who had raped her in 2013. Three of them, Amit, Jagmohan, and Sandeep were arrested by the police while Mausam and Akash were absconding. The accused reportedly produced alibi through CCTV footage and phone records to show that they were not in Rohtak on the day of the rape.

The police arrested two other men, Sandeep Hooda and Pramod Kumar, who were unrelated to the 2013 case. Their castes were not reported, though Hooda is a surname used by Jats. The police claimed that they had been seen with the victim in the CCTV footage of a local hotel on the day of the rape. Without confirming the version of the events narrated to the police by the two men, the police shared their account with the media. This was done without informing or cross-checking with the victim. The police told the media that according to the two men, the victim had called Sandeep Hooda to her college where he went with Pramod. After this, they went to the hotel where Pramod and the victim had a few drinks and consensual sex, before he left her in an inebriated state.

These statements made by the police to the media are intended to bring the public eye to question the ‘character’ of the victim and to justify violence against her through victim blame.

The victim and her family found out about this statement through the newspapers. They maintained that she had been raped by the five men who had raped her in 2013. The victim had threatened to commit suicide to demand that the case be transferred from the Special Investigation Team of the Haryana Police to the Central Bureau of Investigations as she did not believe the investigation to be fair. However, no such transfer was reported and in October, 2016, a local court in Rohtak ordered the release of all five men. These included Amit, Jagmohan and Sandeep, whom the victim had accused of raping her twice, in 2013 and 2016. The other two were Sandeep Hooda and Pramod Kumar, whom she did not accuse of rape and hence did not give a statement on.

After going through the trauma of rape and failure of justice twice, the victim and her family did not feel safe in her continuing her education. In 2017, they said that they did not feel safe anywhere in Haryana anymore and wanted to move away. The victim’s family moved an application in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to seek transfer of the case to the CBI, but no updates in the case have been reported after that.

The victim, who maintained throughout the case that the rapists in 2016 were the same five men as 2013, awaits justice. This case shows the negligence of the police and the justice system, which failed to recognize the abuse of power of the five men. In spite of reporting that she was drugged during both the rapes, discrepancies in her accounts were taken as grounds for the rapists’ release.

Lawyer and activist Vrinda Grover said to The Wire,

“We cannot see this rape in isolation. Nor can we simply see it as the rape of a woman. We have to look at it in the context of caste atrocities that are committed. When caste and patriarchy join hands, this is the lethal consequence of that. The victim’s access to justice is obstructed not only because she is a woman, but it is almost impossible because of her caste. Incidents of atrocity are also increasing because Dalit women are asserting themselves. Like in this case, reports say the men said they were ‘punishing’ her because she refused to compromise. She was questioning their complete control over the bodies of Dalit women, which has traditionally been how caste has worked. She asserted her right to justice. The non-inclusion of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act in the first case is in itself a big problem. It shows how the system continues to be blind to the caste element in these rape cases.”

A pattern of police negligence and inaccessibility of justice enabled the five men who raped the victim in 2013 to continue to abuse their power to intimidate and punish her. The conclusion of this intimidation for not complying with their narrative and asserting her testimony was the punishment of rape. 

References:

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/rohtak-gangrape-dalit-woman-2920820/
https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/jul/18/Rapists-on-bail-rape-Haryana-Dalit-woman-again-882273.html
https://thewire.in/gender/rohtak-dalit-gang-rape
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/3-years-on-Rohtak-girl-raped-again-by-same-five-accused/articleshow/53256791.cms
https://scroll.in/latest/811968/haryana-student-gangraped-a-second-time-in-three-years-by-same-men
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/rohtak-dalit-gangrape-case-sit-says-no-proof-court-frees-all-5-accused-3088664/
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/choked-threatened-beaten-rohtak-gangrape-victim-recalls-horror/story-JTiZm2GaauSTOTDeNOWHVL.html
https://www.freepressjournal.in/cmcm/rohtak-gang-rape-case-victims-kin-blames-police-of-trying-to-save-accused
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/Fifth-arrest-made-in-Rohtak-gang-rape/article14508393.ece
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/220716/rohtak-double-gangrape-survivor-says-she-lives-in-fear.html?fromNewsdog=1

http://www.catchnews.com/india-news/rohtak-horror-where-dalit-women-and-children-are-rape-targets-1469121086.html

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/rohtak-gang-rape-amid-conflicting-versions-in-search-of-truth-sit

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/rohtak-bhiwani-dalit-woman-gangrape-twice-victim-mother-2922346/
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rohtak-gang-rape-90-days-on-court-orders-release-of-5-accused-due-to-lack-of-evidence/story-FlYURXn3t4Z2LocUlx87NN.html

#ReportingToRemember the Karnataka High Court for erasing caste-based violence while convicting five upper caste men for the gang-rape of a minor Dalit girl.

On 4th January, 2001, a 15-year-old Dalit girl, along with her 13-year-old nephew, was collecting fodder for her family’s cattle, near land which belonged to a man called Kantennavar (caste unreported) in Navalagi, Karnataka. Here, they were surrounded by four upper-caste men, all in their twenties. They beat up the nephew. The nephew managed to  run  away to get the girl’s father for help The men then dragged the victim to the sugarcane fields nearby, where they gang-raped her. When the victim’s nephew and father came back, the rapists ran away. The specific castes of the rapists has not been reported.

On the same day, the victim filed a complaint. Three of the accused were arrested on 6th January, and the fourth accused was arrested on 9th January. Their medical examination was conducted and evidence was collected after their arrest. The four men were found to be guilty by a Trial Court in Bagalkot. This judgement was passed on October 28, 2003, two years after the incident The judgement sentenced the four men under Sections 376(2)(g) of the IPC which pertains to gangrape, and Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which gives an extended sentence for the same, when committed against a person belonging to a Scheduled Caste or Tribe. The four men  were sentenced to imprisonment for ten years under the former for gangrape, and given life imprisonment under Prevention of Atrocities

Two years after the sentence ,in 2005, the accused appealed against this judgement at the Karnataka High Court. The accused claimed that the victim’s statement was unreliable due to minor discrepancies and lack of corroboration. However the court did not accept this and upheld the sentence for gangrape. The court cited the victim’s  testimony as important evidence that need not be corroborated, and also highlighted the medical evidence and witness testimonies that supported her claims.

However, for the conviction under the Atrocities Act, the judgement erased the caste-based nature of the sexual violence, instead referring to the rape as a “lustful act of misguided youth”. The judgement ruled that the rape was a result of their lust and not on the ground that the victim belonged to a Scheduled caste. In doing so, the judgement erased the victim’s experience as a Dalit girl raped by upper-caste men, and justified the violence as being a result of “lust”. It erased the upper caste male’s abuse of  power. This was done in order to reduce the punishment of the rapists as the sentence would have been extended if the Atrocities Act was applied. The imprisonment period for gangrape is maximum ten years and for Caste based atrocities a minimum of fourteen years . In this judgement, punishment for only sexual violence was seen as justified, whereas punishment for caste-based violence was erased.

#ReportingToRemember the Gotitoria police for procedural errors, delays & inaction in filing a Dalit woman’s complaint after she was gangraped.

On September 28, 2020, a 32-year-old Dalit woman was working in an agricultural field in the Narsinghpur district in Madhya Pradesh, cutting grass for cattle. Three men, Arvind and Parsu Choudhury, and Anil Rai approached her in the field and then proceeded to gangrape her. According to the police, Arvind and Parsu belong to the same caste as the victim. Anil Ra'i’s caste has not been reported, though we can infer that ‘Rai’ is a title often used by Rajput castes, historically conferred upon hereditary rulers and zamindars by the Mughals as well as the British.


After the violence, the victim and her family were faced by police inaction and harassment. On the same day that she was raped, the victim and her family went to the Gotitoria police station to file an FIR. The police took a verbal complaint but did not file an FIR. The police also did not conduct a medical examination, which the police  claimed  would be conducted the next day. However, the police refused to file an FIR on the next day as well. This negligence was practised by assistant sub-inspector Mishrilal Kodapa, whose caste has not been reported. Fed up by the inaction at the Gotitoria police station, the victim’s family approached the Cheechli police station under which the Gotitoria police station operates. Instead of lodging an FIR, the police locked the victim’s husband and his elder brother in the lockup. The police abused the victim. According to the victim’s husband, they were held due to a complaint lodged by the accused and had to pay Rs 50,000 as a bribe in order to be released.

Distressed by the harassment and blame the victim and her family faced, the victim died by suicide on October 2, 2020.

Mishrilal Kodapa, the sub-inspector from the Gotitoria police station who refused to file an FIR,was suspended. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rajesh Tiwari and Gadarwara Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) S R Yadav of Narsinghpur district were transferred as punishment for the harassment meted out to the victim. Tiwaris are Brahmins, and Yadavs are listed as OBC in Madhya Pradesh. According to the police, the victim further faced victim blame and humiliation from Motital, the father of rapist Arvind Choudhary. According to the police, the victim also faced harassment from another woman from her village named Leela Bai, who taunted her when she went to fetch water. 

#ReportingToRemember the Bansal employers and Model Town police for erasing the murder of a minor Nishad woman & harassing the Nishad family when they demanded justice.

On 4 October, 2020, a 17-year-old domestic worker belonging to the Nishad community was found dead in her employer Drupadi Bansal’s house in Model Town, Delhi. Her foster-family, who has been taking care of her ever since her mother’s death many years ago, believe that she was raped and murdered, but the employer’s family and the police claim it was a suicide. The employer’s family consists of Bansals and Mittals, both belonging to powerful Bania or mercantile castes. The Nishad community is a marginalized caste, classified as OBC in Delhi.



A few hours before her body was discovered, the victim had called her foster mother, Kusum, to say that Bansal was forcing her to sleep in the driver’s room even though she didn’t want to do so, and she asked her foster mother to come and take her because she didn’t like it there. Kusum, her foster mother, had arranged for her to work at the Bansal house approximately a week before that day. Kusum and Bansal had agreed that her daughter would sleep in the dining room, which had a CCTV camera, and would therefore secure her safety.



Kusum could not go to pick her up immediately as she had to attend to work. When Kusum went back home, she found out that she had received a call from Drupadi Bansal’s daughter Renu Mittal while she was at work. Kusum called Renu Mittal back. Mittal told Kusum on the phone that she was coming to pick her up and take her to the Bansal house because Kusum’s daughter had locked herself in a room and was refusing to come out.

On the way, Mittal dissuaded Kusum from calling her daughter, saying that they were going to reach soon anyway. Kusum arrived at the Bansal house, to find dozens of policemen present there, some sipping cold drinks. Renu Mittal asked Kusum to go meet her daughter. Renu Mittal continued upstairs to her mother’s house (the Bansal house). Bansal’s son (Mittal’s brother) was also in the house.

Kusum went inside to find her daughter’s body hanging from the ceiling in the driver’s room. Kusum noticed that the cloth with which her daughter was hanging did not belong to her. She also noticed that her daughter’s body bore boils, bruises on her hands, back and armpits. Kusum was then forcibly dragged out of the site by the police.

The police used every tactic including harassment, abuse, intimidation, to keep the victim’s body from her family.

The victim’s family was pressured  to give multiple statements, and they alleged that the Bansals did not come into the police station even once to give a statement in the days following the death. Though the police said that the Bansals had been called to the station on the 4th of October, the victim’s family claimed that they had been at the station the entire time and never saw them come in.

Kusum experienced a lack of action towards justice. She was denied her right to be with her daughter’s body. Kusum was also denied any information about this case. The Bansal’s refused to speak to the victim’s family or allow them inside their house.

Kusum and her family along with neighbours showed resistance, and brought attention to this matter by breaking planter pots in front of the Bansal house on the 7th of October. They demanded answers from the Bansal family.

Following this incident, the police detained 12 people from amongst the family and their neighbours. The men and women taken in police custody, were assaulted and abused. The police pulled the women by their hair, beating them, and hurling insults. Many police officers, in an inebriated state, forced the men to jump, hitting them every time they stopped jumping. The police released them only after warning them to not demand an FIR and threatened to file false cases against them under the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 if they dared to try to file one. The police threatened to get all of them evicted.The police beat up the victim’s 12-year-old cousin. The police also threatened  to declare the victim’s body as unclaimed and burn it. 


Burning the body is both denying the family their right to last rites, and also erasing any form of evidence. Forceful burning of the body is part of a pattern of denial of justice in cases of caste-based sexual violence. It is an assertion of power that denies the victim’s family the power of testimony and witness by destroying evidence. It is also a form of humiliation as it is a refusal of the victim’s family’s agency to perform the victim’s last rites.

The police refused to hand over the body to Kusum saying that the post-mortem could not be conducted without the presence of the victim’s biological father, who lived out of town. The police refused to hand over the body even though another biological relative of the victim, her sister, was available in the city to accept the body. The post-mortem was finally conducted 4 days after the incident, on 8th October, when the victim’s biological father arrived. However, instead of handing over the body to the family, the police forcefully burnt the body of the victim. The family was also not allowed to access the full post mortem report which came out after the body was burnt. Earlier, the police had refused to file an FIR, claiming that they could only do so after the post-mortem. However, they continued to refuse to file the FIR, saying that half of the report was still pending. Out of the 26-page report, only the first three pages were shared with the family, which termed the cause of death as asphyxia, or inability to breathe. Whether or not sexual violence was ruled out in the post-mortem or whether there was any foul play was not clear since the full report was not shared with the family. The cause of death does not rule out foul play from the victim’s death.

On October 16, 2020 Kusum’s family and neighbours, along with students from the nearby Delhi University staged a protest outside the Model Town police station, demanding an FIR into her death. The protestors, including a reporter from the Caravan, were forcefully detained and abused in custody. Many of the detained protestors and people who came out in support of Kusum were from her neighbourhood Gurmandi, a predominantly Dalit locality, where many work as domestic workers.

The police has still not registered an FIR, and has declared it a case of suicide without any evidence or investigation. The victim’s family believes that there has been foul play in the case, as the last time when Kusum had spoken to her daughter suggested that she was in distress, following which the Bansal family’s accounts were not consistent with what her daughter had told her on the call. Following this, the Bansal’s apathy towards the death, the marks of violence she had seen on the victim’s body, and the lack of transparency and abuse from the police are all a refusal of the victim’s family’s right to an investigation.

Kusum’s daughter’s employment at the Bansal house came with certain agreements to ensure her safety, such as the place where she would be sleeping. These terms were ignored and her daughter communicated with her that she was being mistreated and was in distress. In spite of this, Kusum and her family were consistently discredited and treated as unreliable, while her daughter’s testimony was ignored. As a Bahujan domestic worker, her safety and dignity while she was alive, and her life itself, were treated as dispensable. While colluding and cooperating with the upper-caste Bansal employers and enabling them to escape accountability for an unnatural death that occured in their house, the police used tactics of violence, intimidation, humiliation and harassment against the victim’s family to refuse their right to due process and justice. Any attempts at protesting against the injustice were met with violent punishment, not just against the victim’s immediate family, but also her community. The caste-based sexual violence against Kusum’s daughter was followed by further caste-based violence against Kusum and her community for daring to be assertive. Through the police inaction and violence, a larger message was sent to the community about the lack of the State’s will to uphold dignity and justice for domestic workers from caste-based sexual violence.

#ReportingToRemember the Supreme Court for erasing the caste-based nature of gangrape committed on a Pardhi woman & denying justice to her.

On January 10, 1996, a woman belonging to the Pardhi tribe, was gangraped by three upper-caste men, Ramdas, Ashok, and Madhukar (caste unreported).

The Pardhis were one of 150 tribes who were termed as hereditary criminals under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. Under this act, members of notified tribes were systematically registered and their movements restricted, with many being quarantined without conviction. Although they were denotified, stigma and policing of the communities continued under the Habitual Offenders Act of 1952. In Maharashtra, the Pardhis are classified as a Scheduled Tribe.

The victim, who resided in the Ekurka village had come to Kewad to visit her family, and was staying at her father’s home. Her family members were away, working at the Jagadamba Sugar Factory in Ahmednagar district, and the victim  was visiting to help her family  harvest their crops.

At 10 pm on January 10th, 1996 Ramdas came to the victim’s house while she was alone, and asked her to come with him. When she refused, he dragged her out, and he whistled to call the other two men, Ashok and Madhukar. Around 500 metres away from her home, the three men raped her and threatened to kill her if she reported the incident. Although her uncle lived nearby, he did not come to help her when she raised an alarm, because they had threatened him with dire consequences as well. Ramdas and Ashok were the landowners of the plots adjacent to the victim’s family, and there had previously been land disputes between the victim’s family and them.

The next day, the victim visited her sister at Kelgaon village. The victim’s sister advised her to file a complaint. Although she went to a police station in Kaij and reported the rape, it was neither recorded nor was any action taken. After speaking to her parents in Ahmednagar, she again reported the incident to the Beed police station. The report that was finally lodged was marked as being lodged on January 18,  eight days after the violence took place.

Despite the delay in registering the complaint, the perpetrators were convicted under Section 376 read with Section 34 of the IPC for gangrape, and Section 3(2)(v) of the Atrocities Act by a Sessions Judge in Beed in 1998. The rapists were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Maharashtra High Court also dismissed the appeals of the accused.

However, in 2006, the Supreme Court accepted the appeal of the accused and upturned, or reversed both of their convictions. The judgement dismissed the conviction under the Atrocities Act, stating  “the mere fact that the victim happened to be a girl belonging to a scheduled caste does not attract the provisions of the Act”. Hence erasing the fact that the rape was also caste motivated; sexual violence is used to put  a community in “its place” by an upper-caste man The court dismissed and erased the survivor’s experience as a Pardhi woman, instead framing it as a mere detail that she was using to her advantage. The judgement questioned and blamed her for the discrepancies in dates and the delay in the filing of the report. This was in spite of the fact that she testified to inaction by the police. She also said in her testimony that she was unable to verify the details of the report as she could not read it and had given her thumbprint without verifying it. The victim was thus refused justice as there was no higher court she could appeal to.

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