On November 3, 2012, a 16-year-old Dalit girl was gangraped by four Jat boys in the Daya village in Hisar district, Haryana. The victim, whose mother had passed away 12 years before this incident, used to live with her father, who was a labourer at a sand mine. The victim returned home from school in the afternoon to have her lunch as she did everyday. Her father was usually at work at that time As she was eating, the four Jat boys, who were all known to her, entered her house, tied her up, and then raped her one after another, threatening to kill her if she reported it to anyone.
Jats are a traditionally agricultural caste, which although classified as OBC in some states, is a powerful landowning caste in Haryana and enjoys political influence.
After the violence, the victim dropped out of school . She could not tell anyone what happened out of shame and fear. When her father finally found out about the incident from her, he informed members of the family and the matter soon became public in the village. On November 8, the Jat Khap panchayat (unelected all-male caste council) attempted to force the victim and her father to accept an apology and compensation in return for not reporting the violence to the police. The victim and her family refused the apology. They did not accept the compensation to stay silent.
The victim’s father went to the police station on November 11, 2012, to report the matter. He was threatened and intimidated, and forced to sign a statement saying that the victim had only been beaten up. The rapists’ family members immediately came to the victim’s house when they found out about the case, and abused and intimidated the family, threatening social boycott and expulsion from the village if they did not drop the case. The victim’s father was coerced into signing a statement saying that a compromise had been reached.
Soon after, with the help of the uncle of the victim, student groups and Dalit activists, a complaint was filed with the Superintendent of the Police, a medical examination was conducted, and the accused were arrested.
The arrests of the 4 Jat boys were followed by public khap panchayat meetings on the 15th and 16th of November, where the Jats threatened the victim’s family with expulsion from the village if they did not withdraw the complaint. The accused were released on bail a month after the arrest, and the case was shifted to the Deputy Superintendent of the Police, with details of rape being ommitted, the victim’s testimony erased, and the charges only including trespass, ‘simple hurt’, and threat.
The police said that the medical examination, which was conducted six days after the violence took place, did not match the victim’s testimony of rape. The charges under the Atrocity act were also dropped.
The victim’s lawyer filed a complaint against this investigation in court. In retaliation, the police filed a counter-case under the Atrocity act against him since the DSP whom he had accused of falsifying the case also belonged to a Scheduled Caste.
The family was faced with further harassment, intimidation, and caste discrimination following this. The Jats of the village regularly threatened them and imposed an economic boycott on the victim’s father who in the absence of any livelihood in the village had to travel 8 kilometers to get work. The victims' uncles and cousins were implicated in false cases alleging that they kidnapped a Jat boy.
The victim was forced to leave the village and go to her aunt’s house in Hisar after the rapists were released on bail, and she had to leave school due to taunts and harassment. The case was filed as a private complaint under the IPC and the PoA Act. In 2015, the victim was abused by her uncle who had previously helped her fight the case. He physically attacked her with a brick to the extent that she needed hospitalization and nine stitches on her scalp. The family lodged a complaint against the uncle at the Hisar District court. There have been no further updates reported on either case.
Supporting Links:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Dalit-girls-gangrape-All-four-accused-arrested/articleshow/17177446.cms
https://wssnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/wss-haryana-report-compiled.pdf
https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/44/review-womens-studies-review-issues/rape-atrocity-contemporary-haryana.html
