Caste wars are being increasingly fought over women’s bodies in Haryana. The recent rape and murder of a dalit girl in Jind is the 22nd rape of a dalit women in Haryana, according to activists of the All-India Dalit Adhikar Manch (Aidmam).
The victim’s father, Surat Singh of Baniya Khera village, rues the day that he allowed his daughter to travel alone to Jind on August 24 to give her junior board teacher exam.
“She was a good student and, if she had passed the exam, her hard work of three years would have paid off,” said the downcast Surat Singh, who has still to come to terms with losing his youngest daughter.
According to a fact-finding team of activists and lawyers who visited Jind to try and ascertain details of this particular case, the body of the girl was found at 8 am on August 25. The mother of the girl, along with fifteen other village women, told the team members that her daughter’s salwar was drenched in blood and there were scratches and wounds on both the girl’s thighs and calves with cigarette marks on her upper torso. It seemd as though the girl had been thrown down from a vehicle near an irrigation canal.
The family’s lawyer, Rajat Kalsan, who has specialised in handling cases of dalit atrocities, pointed out that while the police finally did register an FIR under Sections 302 and 376, they did not put the SC/ST (PoA) act as the identity of the perpetrators remains unknown.
The most shocking aspect of this case is that there have been three autopsies on one body, with the police insisting it was a case of suicide. The first post-mortem claimed the hymen was ruptured while the second one conducted at Rohtak stated the hymen was intact.
The body was then brought to AIIMS where a third autopsy was done by Dr Sunil Gupta. who categorically stated that there were no “traces of poison” in her viscera debunking the suicide story floated by the police.
Prof. Vimla Thorat, convenor of the AIDMAM, regretted that a concerted effort was being made by the land mafia to take over dalit lands and the rapes were attempts to terrorise dalit villagers so they vacated them.
The increasing crime graph against women is reflected in the records of National Crime Bureau which has recorded rape of 46,000 minor girls in the last two years.