The gang rape of a Dalit girl in Ayodhya has shaken the conscience of the entire nation, as this dreadful act occurred in the high-security zone of the sacred temple town. The incident has once again spotlighted concerns about the women’s safety in India. A report by Mmudit Mathur
In a horrifying incident that has once again put a spotlight on women’s safety in India, eight individuals were arrested in Ayodhya on charges of gang-raping a college student, who is also employed as a cleaning staff member at the Ram Janmabhoomi temple. This alarming case has drawn national attention and sparked significant outrage on social media. It was more shocking as the victim works at the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, a high-security area in Ayodhya. The incident has also brought into focus the danger faced by women working in public spaces, and the poor safety conditions they encounter.
Amid big claims by the BJP government of maximum security for women in the state, the gang rape of a Dalit girl in Ayodhya shook the conscience of the entire nation over the dreadful act in the high-security zones of the sacred temple town. The incident gave ammunition to the opposition parties to expose the hollowness of its slogan “Beti Bacho Beti Padao”.
The victim alleged that she approached the local police on August 26 but her complaint was not registered. The in-charge of Cantt police station in Ayodhya, Amrendra Singh, said: “We registered the case on September 2 after an inquiry and eventually arrested all eight accused. They were sent to jail from the court.” The police have registered a case under sections 127(2) (wrongful confinement), 75 (sexual harassment) and 70(1) (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
“When we went to the women’s police station on 31 August, the women cops refused to take our complaint at first. They asked why we had come 15 days after the incident. The FIR was lodged only when we approached the senior officers,” she said while talking to media persons.
The main accused, Vansh Chaudhary, is the son of a local BJP leader who was known to the victim for more than four years. Ayodhya Police have booked him as a juvenile. The complainant’s mother also alleged that family members of the main accused faked his real age to ensure he gets booked as a juvenile.
“He (the main accused) was known to my daughter for the past four years. They met when she was studying in Class 12. Now she is 20 years old, how can he be 16.5? His father is in the BJP, which is why no BJP leader came to our doorstep. Leaders of all other parties have reached and offered help but none from the BJP,” said the mother of the victim.
The victim narrated in her FIR to the police that Vansh Chaudhary, a resident of Sahadatganj in Ayodhya district, had promised her that he would take her to places in the district “for recreation.” The victim who had known him for the past four years trusted him and agreed. “I used to trust him a lot. He established physical relations with me several times on the pretext of marriage,” alleged the complainant who is a college student of BA third year in a degree college in Ayodhya town, and also employed by a contractor to work as a sanitation worker at the Ram Janmabhoomi temple.
“Instead of a pleasant outing, I was taken into a guest house in Angoori Bagh on August 16 and kept confined there. It was here that he along with two of his friends, Vinay Kumar and Mohd Shariq gang-raped me and then invited three more friends who molested me,” she said narrating her ordeal. “From the guest house, they took me to a garage in Banvirpur and again molested me. They released me on August 18,” she said. The victim was threatened by her abusers that they would do the same with her younger sisters and kill her family if she reported the matter to the police.
“As I feared for my family members and my life because they had threatened to kill all of us, I didn’t go to the police. But Vansh again abducted me on August 25 when I was going to the temple for duties. He was accompanied by Udit Kumar, Satram Chaudhary and two unidentified persons. They tried to molest me in the car pressing for unnatural sex but rammed into a divider and I found an opportunity to run away from their clutches,” she alleged in her complaint. The spots of crime identified by the victim come under high-security zones in the temple town.
The complainant is the eldest of three sisters. Her father is a sanitation worker at the office of the assistant municipal commissioner and her mother is a daily-wage labourer who works in the fields most days. While the eldest daughter started working even before she could complete her college due to financial constraints, the younger one is preparing for SSC examinations and the youngest is a Class 8 student. The family complains that the incident has ruined their lives as young boys of nearby localities pass vulgar comments on her younger sisters and harass them.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on 14 September demanded strict punishment for the accused and punitive action against “irresponsible policemen.” Yadav shared on X a 13-second clip of the woman narrating her ordeal, including the lack of cooperation from the police.
“The video statement of a gang-rape victim in Ayodhya has revealed the root cause of the increasing cases of harassment and atrocities against women in Uttar Pradesh. How the victim had to suffer to file a report due to some insensitive policemen,” he said in the post accompanying her video. “Due to the complexity of filing a report, many crimes are not even registered, which boosts the criminals’ morale,” Yadav added. “There should be justice with the victim and strict punitive action should be taken against the criminals as well as irresponsible policemen,” he demanded.
The Samajwadi Party which is gearing up for the high stakes Milkipur bye-election in the wake of its MLA Avdhesh Prasad winning prestigious Ayodhya Lok Sabha seat, this case gave ammunition to the Akhilesh Yadav-led party to attack the ruling dispensation. This has come as a counter to UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s remarks last month, that the SP is a part of “rioters” and “predators”. The chief minister made the remarks about the arrest of a 65-year-old SP worker, Moeed Khan, and his helper for allegedly gang-raping a 12-year-old girl.
“The CM came here and targeted Moeed Khan, but did not even mention the case of our daughter who works at the Ram temple because the accused in the case is the son of a leader from BJP. I want to ask if this is justice irrespective of the caste or religion of the accused?” the district president of Samajwadi Party, Paras Nath Yadav questioned.
Ayodhya SSP Raj Karan Nayyar said, “I came to know that when she went to the “Mahila Thana” (Women Police Station), the accused pressured her to resolve the matter and discouraged her from approaching the police. But as soon as I learned of the incident, the police swung into action,” he said, explaining about the delay in registering the FIR to the media persons.
The case has stirred outrage, as questions are being raised about the delay in registering the victim’s complaint and the implications of such a crime happening in a high-security area like Ayodhya. Authorities have assured a thorough investigation and stringent action against those involved.
