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