First published on 22 October 2012
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BEYOND THE chowmein and the Om Prakash Chautala jokes, the scourge of rapes is very real in Haryana. So real that it’s hair-raising. So real, it even makes one wonder whether calling Haryana the rape capital is politically incorrect.
Sample this. On 8 December 2010, in the little known village of Pillu Kheda in Jind district, a 13-year-old girl was abducted by four boys, raped and left by the roadside. The girl somehow managed to crawl to a brick kiln for help, only to be raped again by two workers there. When she was finally let go in the evening, an autorickshaw driver offered to give her a lift, only to rape her again and dump her on the same road. Left for dead and crying for help, the young teen was picked up by a truck driver and his aide, who — not surprisingly by now — raped her repeatedly for nine days. The police eventually found the girl at a woman’s house in Panipat after her father had filed a missing complaint.
Illustration: Sudeep Chaudhuri
The police claims it has most of the perpetrators in custody, but activists say four rapists were let off after the panchayat intervened. This has been the familiar pattern in almost all rape cases in Haryana. A girl is raped — gangraped in most cases — and the police go through the motions of arresting a few people, only to set them free after the panchayat intervenes on their behalf. No one cares what happens to the victim, not a thought is spared; in fact, she is often forced to leave the village and never come back again.
Instead of serving as a deterrent, the Pillu Kheda rape case only seemed to encourage similar occurences. In a ghastly reminder of the 2010 rape, in July 2011, a 3½-year-old girl was raped by three men in the village. A year later, the police arrested the rapists and filed a chargesheet in August 2012. A look at the records of 2012 in the DSP office in Safido, Jind, reveals a shocking picture. In a space of five months, between February and June, a town of barely 3,000 people had witnessed six rapes. Rapes have not only become commonplace in Pillu Kheda, they are the norm. Another case recorded on 21 September was of a Dalit woman raped by three men in her house, who also filmed the heinous act on their mobile phones. It was only when the woman’s 7-year-old daughter saw her mother being raped from the window and screamed for help that the rapists left. In this case, the woman had clearly identified all three men, but the police is yet to prepare a chargesheet, waiting instead for the customary 60-day period to end before acting.
The speed at which police work is done is a major cause for concern in Haryana. “The laxity of the police is shameful,” says Jagmati Sangwan, state president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). “There is a rape epidemic in Haryana and the main reason is that instead of putting culprits behind bars, the cops target activists who raise their voice against the system.” Even as repeated rapes catch a slumbering police unawares, many believe that deterrence cannot work in Haryana given the regressive mindset in the state, symbolised by the heavy interference of panchayats in every sphere of life, more so in cases of rape.
In Durjanpur village, Jind, Balwant alias Krishan, a Dalit of the Gosain caste, sits outside his hut on the outskirts of the village. It’s been six years since her schoolteacher raped Krishan’s 16-year-old daughter Rani* inside a classroom. An academically weak student, Rani was lured with a promise to elevate her to the next class and taken by surprise as PT instructor Rameshwar raped her inside the room while Maths teacher Ram Kumar Punia sat guard outside. Both Rameshwar and Punia belong to the Jat caste. Krishan gestures with his eye towards the panchayat members who keep an unrelenting watch on him. “Speak to the sarpanch. I have nothing to say,” he says.
It’s difficult to tell if it is a sense of loss or intimidation that suppresses memories of the days when Krishan and his daughter became the talk of a whole nation. When the attention died down, he took Rani out of school and married her off in another village, never again to set foot in the village “she had brought disrepute to”.
Caste, like police inaction and panchayat interference, plays a major role in how rape victims are perceived in Haryana. As the 14 villages surrounding Durjanpur are dominated by the Punia clan, it was decided that Rani would tell the court that Punia had only “insulted” her while Rameshwar, who belonged to neighbouring Uklana town, was the actual rapist. A sessions court sentenced Rameshwar to 10 years of imprisonment while Punia was declared not guilty. No one knows what transpired in the time when the girl had initially claimed that two men had raped her and when she recorded that one just mocked her after she was raped. For in Durjanpur, like hundreds of other villages in Haryana, fear triumphs over truth, false honour prevails over justice and clan loyalties often dictate statements of rape victims.
Between January and August this year, there have been 455 reported cases of rape in Haryana; hundreds go unreported. “There is no fear of the law in Haryana,” says Hisar-based advocate Rajat Kalsan, fighting the Dabra case involving the rape of a 16-year-old Dalit girl. “That’s because most of the administrative machinery, the state police and the judiciary is dominated by people whose relatives have a major hold on panchayats in the state. The Jats have terrorised the Dalits and backward castes and have become a law onto themselves.” Although women across castes have been raped, most victims are Dalits.
Even though khap panchayats strictly oppose same gotra marriages, they are silent when a girl is raped within a family
The caste factor plays out again and again with every reported instance of rape. Puneeta’s*, 19, a Dalit girl from Banwasa village of Sonipat district, is one such horror story. Married in July, Puneeta was visiting her marital home, when tragedy befell her. “On 28 September, when everyone had gone to work, and Puneeta was alone at home, our neighbour Maafi came and told her that her husband Sunil was waiting for her at the railway gate nearby,” says Puneeta’s 18-year-old brother, Gurmeet. “Initially, Puneeta was reluctant to leave the house empty, but when Maafi insisted, she left to meet her husband. He was anyway supposed to come the next day to take her home.”
At the crossing, Puneeta did not meet her husband, but two youths, Sunil and Sanjay from nearby Khandari village, who forced her into a car and drove away. They were soon joined by two more men from Ahemadpur Manjra, and together they took Puneeta to a deserted shed in the middle of a farm. There they raped and beat her repeatedly for the next five days.
A beautifully written article, which filled me with sadness and pain for these girls and women. I weep and weep for them. These ‘men’ will never ever know the pain they have caused – infact their lack of punishment rewards them for their crime. Damn I hope there is a god and he can punish them for their despicable acts. If this happened to my daughter… hell would seem like heaven to her tormentors after I had finished with them. I try to believe there is inherent goodness within mankind and that it is not only the laws that govern us that prevent us from acting like beasts but reading this? I am no longer sure what to believe.
Its like a burning sensation that runs through the veins ….
the excitement I saw before he was butchered …
I would do the same, find them, kill them
Impose Shariah law in Haryana and post Commissioner AK Khan from Hyderabad giving him full authority without political interference, for only about a month. And see a SEA change. Simple !
Stupid ass. Keep your filthy shit out of this.
Kamaal budhi mili aapko huzoor! Pakistan mein hai Shariya – their condition is worse than Haryana (heaven knows how is that possible).
Really sad events. The best way to punish those accused in, on conviction they should be publicly humiliated and they should be chemical castration…
Very simple. Abolish all parimally traditions. Backward ass traditions.
this shear hunger for sexual advances by men in haryana is just because of female foeticide.. Women to men ratio is quite less in tha tregion , thats the route cause.. and if crime reports to be belived … they don’t even have a women to get married… so they jus buy women from other neighbouring states to get married / enslave…
What a foolish comment!
Well sir, the comment was not foolish. A couple of years, or perhaps few more years back an article was published in The Week magazine on how men from Haryana are/were buying women from other states, mainly the southern states for matrimony. The reason attributed then, in the article, is the perpetual abysmally low sex ratio. While I cannot comment on Nidhi’s inference of low sex ratio and female foeticide behind the average Haryanvi man’s sheer hunger for sex, the fact of men buying women to marry is true.
Women should empower themselves. They should chose to die fighting rather than being insulted. They should carry a concealed country made pistol and they should not hesitate to shoot to kill any rapist. It is better to go to jail for murder rather than living like a slave to men.
what a foolish comment. so now every woman, whether rich or poor, should somehow procure a pistol and lean how to use it, because haryana is a lawless state!
I believe that there is no doubt that one of the factors responsible is the female foeticide which has led to the horribly skewed ratio of men outnumbering women. But does that mean that Society should not protect the remaining women? I believe that in the first instance, summary trials conducted by judges from other states should be held and the death sentence should be made mandatory for all the menfolk involved in female foeticide, killing of girls, and in cases of rape. It is only after the ratio becomes more balanced should there be a review of these strict laws.
While the women who undergo through this trauma are defenseless victims, the mothers, sisters, wives and daughters of the perps are abetting in crime. Each one of them armed with kitchen knives should become “Lorena Bobbits” and chop the buggers off. A few headlines such as this would ensure their pants are on. If they don’t, its only a matter of time when these maniacs feed on their own.
Umm, how would you like it if the women of your family employed your “solution” against you?
Please be realistic. Women in Haryanvi society are raised to defend their menfolk and share their loyalties. They would defend a husband, son or father accused of rape and do zilch to stop them.
Its one of the great tragedies of womankind. We love and protect our men, while they rape and destroy other women. If women showed the same kind of solidarity that men do, patriarchy would collpase in minutes. Alas, such women don’t protect and support other women.
Sell Haryana to Pakistan,, if they’ll have them.
Good Article about Haryana. The north of India is full of Sh*t …
“At the crossing, Puneeta did not meet her husband, but two youths, Sunil and Sanjay from nearby Khandari village, who forced her into a car and drove away. They were soon joined by two more men from Ahemadpur Manjra, and together they took Puneeta to a deserted shed in the middle of a farm. There they raped and beat her repeatedly for the next five days.”
If I were Puneeta’s husband, father or brother, then I would find the the two youths and the two men who did this and I’d kill them with my bare hands.
… after castrating them with a blunt knife ….
Why do you want to write “Dalit” woman raped, “Brahmin” raped, “Muslim” raped and pour your caste and religion thoughts in the rape when it doesnt happen based on the case/religion. Fanatic !!
its DOES happen based on caste and religion. dalit women are often raped BECAUSE they are dalit, and will not get any police or societal support in their fight against the perpetrators. Muslim women in gujarat were raped BECAUSE they were muslim. Get real!
mera bharat mahan, great culture,super power,fast growing ecconomy
North Indian men are for this only….